The Moonblood Murders
by HumanyWumany
Summary: Sherlock and John are called to the scene of a gruesome murder but things only really get serious when they discover the identity of the deceased and the two of them solve the case whilst developing their professional and personal relationships. Pre-Reichenbach. Narrated half by John and half by Sherlock. Later includes the two kissing and once having sex. Fangirl alert.
1. Chapter 1

**The Moonblood Murders**

**John**

I seem to have spent a sizable amount of my life being tired. People have always had to wake me up. I could never do it before midday of my own accord.

"John, get up, you're late for school!"

"If you don't drag your lazy arse out of bed right now you'll miss this interview!"

"Wake up, John! You're due at a lecture in ten minutes."

"John, we have to go, it's our exam today!"

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

"Doctor Watson, fifteen minutes until parade, Sir!"

"Oi, John, did you volunteer for this night scouting party or what?"

"John, John, can you hear me? Open your eyes; talk to me, just stay awake, yeah?"

Since that final instance of being forcibly pulled from the abyss of pain and darkness I entered when I was shot in the shoulder whilst on a tour of duty as a serving medical officer in Afghanistan everything changed. I didn't want to go to sleep because every time I closed my eyes I relived the moment when the bullet entered my flesh, simultaneously shattering my collar bone and any bravery I might once have had. Then my entire being was consumed with confusion and bewilderment and terror and a searing throb of agony that I felt as blood pumped out of the hole of gristle, torn muscle and fragments of bone that used to be my shoulder.

With the persistent, sly exhaustion came shame. It took three months for them to rebuild my shoulder but after that I received an honourable discharge from the army because I was so messed up. I had developed a limp and couldn't walk without a stick although there was no damage to my legs. My left hand was almost constantly shaking and I felt as though I was utterly alone. Nobody in my family wanted to know apart from Harry but she was still living with mum and dad so I couldn't very well ask to kip on their sofa for a bit. I had no friends. Nobody understood. I didn't deserve their kind words or their pity. They'd know if they'd been where I had, staring death in the face for weeks on end, on constant edge, the lives of so many other people in my hands. I was given a shitty little MoD flat to live in and referred to a therapist who diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder, an intermittent tremor in my left hand, a psychosomatic limp and severe depression. I was a coward, a cripple, broken, popping happy pills to stop myself finishing what the Taliban started. I was a doctor. I knew which arteries to cut. I clung onto life in a constant state of despair, sitting on the uncomfortable bed in the uncomfortable flat, staring blankly at the damp running down the walls, holding my unloaded gun in both hands, finger on the trigger, aimed up from between my slack knees to my face. If I began to relax into sleep, my finger pulled the trigger and the loud click shook me into wakefulness. I only exited my flat to see my therapist. I felt stupid walking with a stick I knew I didn't need. I had failed at everything.

After one visit to my therapist I was walking through Hyde Park on my way home when I met one of my friends from medical school, David Stamford. He stopped me said he'd heard about what had happened to me and blah blah blah; I fixed a false smile onto my face and lied that I was fine, thanks for asking, all the while wishing I could shoot him for being content and for having no comprehension of what it felt like to be me. Then I wished I could shoot myself for being a selfish bastard. Anyway, David said he knew someone from the hospital where he worked who was looking for someone to share flat with and did I want to meet him and have a look around the said flat. I agreed, just so I'd have something to do for the rest of the day to keep me awake and alive.

We walked in a combination of awkward silence and small talk to the lab of St. Bart's Hospital where I met the man who saved my life. He was bending over a microscope, wearing a long coat and blue scarf. He seemed to me like a willow branch, long, slender, elegant in his concentration. David cleared his throat and the man raised his head and hooked his eyes into my own. Bright blue, piercing, penetrating, they saw me for what I was, they saw how afraid I had become and showed not one shred of pity, only inquisitiveness. They looked into my soul and cleansed it slightly. The man easily stretched his prominently boned face into a questioning, lopsided smile. He covered the distance between us in three easy strides, without ever taking his intense eyes from mine.

Sherlock Holmes offered me his pale, long-fingered hand which I immediately took and shook; his grip was firm and strong. It made me feel as if he were offering me an escape from my misery, something to hold onto. Then he posed the question that showed me how deeply his eyes had scrutinised my being.

"Iraq or Afghanistan?"

"I'm sorry?" I replied, awestruck that he knew about me to such a deep level after less than thirty seconds of being in the same room.

"You heard me."

"Afghanistan."

That was it. We were going to look at a flat together. I told Sherlock that I thought it rather forward; we didn't know each other and we'd barely been talking for five minutes. He then reeled off all the things he knew about me just by looking. He knew I was an army doctor, he knew I had been invalided home from Afghanistan, He knew I had brother (actually a sister but even Sherlock makes mistakes) who was worried about me but who I disapproved of, perhaps because they were an alcoholic but more likely because they'd left their wife, he knew that my therapist thought that my limp was psychosomatic, and he agreed with her.

**Sherlock**

The day started off averagely. I spent a few hours in the morning studying the development of bruises after death and being pestered almost constantly by Molly, who I could tell had had an argument with her boyfriend that morning. In the afternoon I went from the morgue to the lab and analysed some fibres found at a crime scene of a case Lestrade needed my help with. He's so stupid; I don't know how he managed to claim that position in the Metropolitan Police. He observes practically nothing and thinks even less. From looking at the fibres and cross-matching them with ones I'd taken from the clothes of the suspects I was able to deduce that the victim's sister had killed her; a conclusion I had reached the previous week but Lestrade will insist on evidence.

Someone coughed behind me, causing me to look up. I am very adverse to romance. I don't believe in destiny or fate or love. At least I didn't before I looked up and saw John Hamish Watson for the first time. Even Lestrade could probably deduce that this was a man on the edge of a metaphorical chasm of self-destruction who was already swaddled tightly in despair. It took me eight seconds to notice his limp was psychosomatic and that, therefore, he had therapist, in those eight seconds I took in the army hair cut which was just beginning to grow out which led me to deduce he had been invalided home from a war zone, although not from a wound in the leg, He was obviously at home at St. Bart's so he was an army doctor invalided home with a therapist and psychosomatic limp and a therapist. Fifteen seconds. When I shook his hand I received further evidence that he was recently returned from a war zone; his tan line stopped at the cuffs of his shirt so he hadn't been sunbathing. I couldn't work out whether he had come from Iraq or Afghanistan so I asked him and he told me. I discovered he disapproved of his brother (turned out to be sister, I should have noticed that) but that the brother was concerned for John when I noticed the inscription on the phone 'to Harry, all my love, Cara XXX' and the scratches around the charge socket. Thirty-six seconds.

We were obviously talking throughout the thirty-six seconds it took me to know John Watson. I think I liked him. I found myself wanting to share a flat with him not just to share the bills and so he could buy food and other essentials so I had had more time to spend on cases and more money to spend on nicotine patches and shoes. I wanted him for company. I wanted to help him because he seemed so alone and so afraid and so _human._


	2. Chapter 2

**John**

Sherlock and I moved into the flat together two days after our initial meeting. One of the first things I discovered about Sherlock was that he was a very messy person. His mind was so organised but that came at a cost. He had no respect for his body or the flat we shared. He rarely remembered to eat or dress and he became bored very easily. When he had finished with something he would chuck it onto the every growing pile of discarded items strewn all over the floor of 221b Baker Street.

Another thing I learnt was that he was a complete genius but that he had no idea how to interact with other human beings, expecting us to understand how his mind worked and being perplexed when he realised we didn't. As the weeks went on I was completely drawn into Sherlock's world. A world of danger, mystery, excitement and surprises; an unpredictable world of frustration and confusion and hard work. A brilliant world of genius. I found myself needing to sleep and not minding, having no nightmares and wanting to wake up in the morning to learn more from the world's first consulting detective. I found myself enjoying life. In three months I no longer had any of the symptoms I had first been to the therapist about and she told me I had no more need of her. The only therapist I need was Sherlock Holmes. He had picked up the broken pieces of me and put me back together again, improved.

**Sherlock**

Early on in our flat-sharing I decided to include John in my consulting detective work because I felt an amiability towards him. He didn't understand me, obviously, nobody does but I understood him. I don't mean that I could tell what he's been doing every day when he came into the flat, who he's been with and what he's eaten which is how I understand the rest of the world. I mean I could tell how he was feeling, when he was tired, when he was frightened. He was frightened a lot in the early days. Luckily I was on a case so I wasn't bored enough to shoot holes in the walls- John jumped out of his skin when Mrs Hudson took out the bins. As time went on John learnt about my methods. He went from completely clueless to vaguely competent at observing evidence and drawing conclusions from those observations although I'm still a long way from letting him loose on his own with any significant level of confidence in his abilities.

The Earth revolves around the Sun, apparently. John found it astounding that I didn't know that even though I'm a genius. I only remember things which are useful to me and my job as the world's first consulting detective, although I only take the interesting cases.

The one thing that does annoy me about John, however, is the fact that he's a doctor and consequently so bloody health conscious. He threw away my emergency supply of cocaine and if he caught me wearing more than one nicotine patch he would rip off the patches until I was only wearing one. He ranted at me for thirteen minutes when he realised I hadn't eaten for a week when I was trying to solve a case. Now he watches me eat at least one meal a day and I do find myself feeling more energetic. John also reminds me to change out of my dressing gown before I visit crime scenes, which is always helpful.


	3. Chapter 3

**John**

The day it all changed and my thin veneer of happiness cracked only to boost me onto a cloud of complete euphoria was after Sherlock had gone through one of his dry phases and been so bored that he gave up looking for his emergency cocaine supply and lay on the sofa with eight nicotine patches on each arm firing blanks into the flowery wallpaper. When the call from Lestrade came Sherlock took the case without thinking about its levels of interest.

"John!" Sherlock shouted, even though I was sitting in the armchair practically next to him.

"Yes?" I replied through gritted teeth.

"Lestrade has just phoned, the mutilated body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned flat not far from here. It won't surprise you to know that the Met are clueless, no leads, come on then."

I threw a few clothes at Sherlock, grabbed my own coat and tore all the nicotine patches from Sherlock's sinewy arms.

We took a taxi to a three-story, Victorian house, now evidently split into flats and Sherlock was at the shabby front door before I'd paid our driver. I hurried after him as we were ushered by a relieved and slightly sick looking Lestrade through the narrow hallway, up the badly carpeted stairs and through an open door.

"Clear out, guys," Lestrade called to the cluster of CSI workers in the room, "Give the dream team a couple of minutes."

"I only need one minute." Sherlock insisted, before enthusiastically leaping through the crude doorway into the dark interior of the room which was at the same time being vacated by several disgruntled CSI workers.

There was a thick layer of dust on the bare floorboards, there appeared to be no furniture in the room and the purpose of our visit was lit by weak sunlight from the only window in the room. The body of the girl made me feel physically sick. I thought the police had done well to determine the gender and age range of the victim. Her body was lying face up, horribly mutilated in a pool of blood which spread for about a metre outwards on three sides and pooled in a congealed dark puddle on the fourth, shocking against the white wall. She appeared to have been attacked with a bat or pole of some kind, her limbs were all pretty much untouched but apart from that her body looked like a raw bloody slab of mince from a third-rate butcher's. There were flashes of silver through the red and purple mass of flesh that was once a face which indicated that she had facial piercings. I couldn't tell whether she was wearing clothes or not. Of course, Sherlock was kneeling unconcernedly over the body with his magnifying lens, muttering to himself, apparently immune to the sickly sweet stench of rotting human flesh.

Sherlock stepped back from the body after what seemed like no time at all and reeled off a long and incoherent stream of observations in a loud voice so Lestrade could hear from the other side of the flimsy door.

"John, can I have a professional opinion on the nature of the injuries and how long ago they were sustained?" Sherlock asked.

I swallowed a few times and nodded, "Yes. Yes, of course." I took a deep breath and bent down.

The knuckles were scabbed, probably defence wounds; I pointed this out to Sherlock.

"I know!" He said impatiently, "Any blind person can see that!"

"Okay." I replied, attempting to sound patient; sometimes dealing with Sherlock Holmes is like dealing with an extremely obnoxious six year old.

"Ribs are broken," I remarked.

"Obviously." Came the retort.

Now I was closer I could see that the victim was wearing clothes, a checked shirt at least, although I couldn't determine the original colour of the shirt because it was so saturated with blood.

"Fractured skull probably the cause of death."

"Yes, Yes."

I gave up telling Sherlock my observations after that as everything I had to say had evidently already crossed his mind. Sometimes I think he hangs around with me just to make himself look even cleverer than he actually is.

I found some splinters of wood in the torso, indicating my bat theory and evidence of severe internal bleeding. Most of the blood appeared to have come from the skull fracture, which had literally smashed a sizable fragment of skull from above the right eye socket into the brain. It was perverse and morbidly fascinating.

Once I'd finished inspecting the body I began to search it for any clues as to who it was. Sherlock probably already knew her address but he'd gone outside and was talking to Lestrade. I manoeuvred myself to the other side of the body where I found a nokia 6085 phone in the remains of a jeans pocket. I flipped it open and opened up the sent messages section. The last seven texts sent from this phone had all been to 'John Mob.' I opened the one most recently sent and my world came crashing down.

**Sherlock**

I had been speaking to Lestrade for eleven minutes when he raised a hand to silence me.

"What's that noise?" He asked.

"I don't know; what noise?" I replied.

"Shut up and you'll hear it."

That told me. We listened and heard a long, drawn out cry with all the agonies of the world inside it.

"That's John!" I said, "Keep your people out and stay out yourself, we won't be taking this case."

I swung through the door into the room where I found John crouched with his forehead and face in the dark blood on the floor at the feet on the body. He was holding something clutched to his chest, and making the noise we'd heard in the corridor, taking a shuddering breath in and making the noise again. I fell to my knees in front of him and held his shoulders.

"John?" I said, finding myself to my surprise struggling to keep my voice level and the tears from springing to my eyes, "John, are you alright?"

He just continued to make the noises, rock slightly, and show no sign of having noticed my presence. I pushed back and upwards on John's shoulders until he had his back against the wall. I held him there because I knew that if I let go he's fall face first into the blood again. The dark blood of the victim was running down John's face and mingling with the tears which were streaming readily down his face. He was desperately boring his eyes into my own, sobbing silently now.

"Hey, John, please, what is it? You're frightening me." Which as I said I realised was true.

He opened his mouth a couple of times, managing only to take in great lungful's of air. His whole body was shuddering and trembling beneath my hands; I pitied him but something I'd learnt about John was that he didn't want to be pitied by anyone, least of all me, so I was damned if I was going to show it.

"John, Come on!" He shook his head and hurled what he was holding across the room.

"Alright, you stay here" I let go of him so he promptly fell face first into the blood.

I crossed the room quickly, grabbed the thrown object, which I realised was a phone and came back to John where I once again supported him against the wall.

"What's this, John?" I asked.

He made a noise that I would liken to someone having their entrails eaten whilst fully conscious and without anaesthetic and shook his head again.

"Okay, John, I'm going to have a look at the phone now." I did, and I realised the last text sent, which was open on the screen said 'Hey John, coming 2 visit u. surprise lol! 221b baker st, rite? Ly, Harry J'

So the phone was his sister's and she had been in the area to see him. The phone did indeed have the signature scratches around the charge socket, indicating alcoholism. Then I realised that the phone was too heavy to only contain a battery and SIM card so I removed the back at the same time as rubbing John's shoulders and saw the explosive device. The phone was packed with enough explosives to blow the roof off this house and the countdown had already started. We had ten seconds.

I dropped the phone/bomb on the floor and seized John's arm, "Come on John, we've got to go! Lestrade, get your people out of here! There's a bomb!" I shouted.

"What?" John said, bewildered, "No, I'm not leaving Harry here."

"I've no time for arguments." I said; starting my hindered way across the room dragging John behind me. Six seconds to go.

John had pretty much completely lost it and was trying to pull away from me, screaming incoherently. I'm not a strong man but I have sufficient boxing knowledge that allowed me to floor John, a poor unprepared, distraught man, in one punch and then swing him upwards until I was wearing him round my shoulders as one might a repulsive hunk of fur. I ran full pelt out of the room and down the stairs but I knew we wouldn't escape the building before the bomb detonated so I turned a sharp left at the bottom of the stairs and flung John into the under stairs cupboard, hurling myself in after him and shutting the door after us. I barely had time to note that the vacuum cleaner in there had been used only twice in the last month and a half before the bomb detonated.

I was flung forwards by the force of the blast and found myself face down pinned to the floor by the smoking remains of the door of the cupboard under the stairs. I seemed to be free from any serious injury and I knew that I could summon up enough strength to lift the door off my spine. I allowed myself a moment to listen to the crackle of flames and occasional soft thump of falling debris and reflect on my own intense foresight to observe which side of the stairs the cupboard was situated when we had entered the building. Lestrade had told me on the phone that this house was up for demolition anyway so whoever had planted the bomb had saved the blasters the trouble.

After basking in my own brilliance for four seconds I realised that I couldn't hear John and allowed myself to consider the possibility that he may have been injured. I opened my mouth to call his name but instead inhaled some chalk dust and had to spend a further six seconds coughing, after which I tensed all my muscles and arched my back so that the door slipped to the ground. As I got to my feet I took in the destruction all around and marvelled at its beauty. The staircase was still mostly intact but it stood proud in a field of rubble and lumps of concrete from which jagged rods of metal protruded. The top third of the stairs, however, lay amongst the devastation. There seemed to be no house left apart from the stairs and around 32cm of floorboard clinging resolutely although completely pathetically to the side on the adjoining house, which seemed to be virtually unaffected. At first I couldn't see John, only Lestrade and few of the CSI workers wading through the scree towards me, waving their arms and shouting some useless drivel which I didn't allow my brain to process but then I noticed a movement from the back of the stairs and stumbled over.

John was hunched into a ball against the underside of the staircase, jammed as firmly and as closely into their shelter as he could possibly be, staring straight ahead and cradling his gun to his chest.

I awkwardly manipulated by long coat until I could sit down in front of him, "John," I began, but he had already seized upon my voice as a drowning man might seize upon a piece of driftwood.

"Bill?" He said, "Bill, I think I've been hit,"  
I searched my brain for someone called Bill and recalled that he was the person who had carried John for three miles to a medical station after he had been shot in Afghanistan. I supposed the bomb couple with the shock and fear of discovering the unrecognizable body of probably his dead sister had triggered those memories.

"No," I said, "It's Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, and as far as I can see you look fine but I could be more certain about that if I could get a better look at you, how about you come out from there and sit with me."

John made no effort to move but ventured, "Sherlock?" tentatively.

"Yes, that's right," I said, I reached for his shoulder but he waved his gun in my face told me to piss off.

"Okay, do you think you might be injured?"

"Of course I'm bloody injured! I've been shot for Christ's sake!" John began to crawl out of the niche when he'd stuck himself but his entire body was shaking and when he reached me he fell into my lap sobbing, "Oh shit, Christ, I can't do this anymore," he wept as I held him, unable to see any sign of injury on him "I want to go home, I just want to go home, please, take me home."

"Alright, it's going to be alright John, let's go home."

I helped John to his feet and made my way back through the rubble with my arm round his waist whilst he leant on me, stumbling along and still crying.

We met Lestrade on our way back, "What's wrong with him?" He asked me.

I thought that it was fair to assume anyone would be slightly shaken up having just been involved in a sizable explosion but I answered Lestrade anyway, because he is, after all, more than a little slow.

"He has only recently returned from active service in Afghanistan, he has discovered his sister's phone on that body up there and he has nearly been blown up. I don't care if you don't have a clue, we won't be taking this case. Good luck finding the body in this mess."


	4. Chapter 4

**John**

I was brought gradually back to myself by the most appallingly tasting cup of tea I have ever drunk, obviously prepared for me by Sherlock himself. I suppose I should have felt honoured. The sofa had been cleared of several A3 sheets of paper, covered in Sherlock's tiny, slanting scrawl. The papers were shoved unceremoniously under the coffee table and I took their place on the faux leather, worn to a greasy looking smoothness by the arses of generations. I stared uncomprehendingly into one of Mrs Hudson's flowery mugs at the grey tea. I couldn't get anything straight in my head. I wasn't cold but I was shivering and breathing unevenly. There had been the phone call, the nicotine patches, the coats, the house, the stairs, the door, the blood, the phone and then nothing. Of course I knew what had happened but it wasn't real, Harry wasn't dead, she couldn't be dead and the bomb- well that was just plain ridiculous. What sort of a weirdo planted bombs in the phones of people who were already dead? Then it dawned on me; this was a joke, it was one of Harry's practical jokes. She had embroiled Lestrade and Sherlock into the elaborate plot to fool me, things had just got a bit out of hand; that was all. It was typical Harry, always trying to get one over on me, well she'd succeeded this time, she'd really had me fooled for a few minutes. Don't be stupid John, you studied the body, you knew it was real. Shut up, it's a joke, it's just a joke. None of this is real.

Sherlock took my hand when I lifted the phone to call Harry and gently guided me to put it back on the coffee table. I hadn't even noticed he was sitting next to me.

"Leave it." He said in a soft, strained voice.

"No, it's just a joke. It's one of her jokes."

"No it's not, John, you know it's not."

Sherlock was right but I didn't trust myself to speak. I nodded, watching the floor blur as my eyes filled with stinging tears. Sherlock enfolded me in the warmth of his skinny arms and I inhaled the smell of smoke from his coat until I had shifted the lump of pain in my throat.

"How did this happen?" I asked, and was surprised to hear how empty my voice sounded, "I thought things were getting better."

There was a long silence in which I realised that I'd have to phone my parents and tell them. They'd say it was my fault. It was my fault; she was in London because of me.

"Sometimes things just happen," Sherlock sighed finally, "Maybe Harry was caught up with the wrong people, maybe she was randomly attacked, and maybe she's not really dead."

"What?" I said, standing up and looking down on Sherlock where he sat, clenching my fists to control the anger which had just flared hot within me.

"There's only a slim chance, you understand, but you found her phone. That doesn't mean it was her body. She may have had her phone stolen, she might even have sought revenge-"

"Are you saying-?"

"I'm not saying anything for sure, John, calm yourself. I doubt we shall ever know; all evidence was destroyed in the explosion; whether that was the bomb-planter's intent or not I don't know, I need more evidence before I can found any substantial opinions but from my initial assessment of the body I can tell it was a female between the ages of twenty and twenty three, with short hair dyed black, wearing heavy eye makeup and that, as far as I can ascertain, all the injuries but the skull fracture were inflicted immediately post-mortem."  
"Why didn't I notice that?" I said dimly, "It sounds like Harry, all those things. She's twenty two, she's got short black hair and she wears a lot of makeup. It's her, isn't it?" Despite the anguish roaring through my body, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope; most of her injuries were inflicted on her after death. She put up a good fight and died almost instantly and painlessly.

**Sherlock**

I'm not accustomed to feeling things other than frustrated at the smallness of other people's minds, enthralled in the game of a case or bored with existence but witnessing John's phone call to his parents made me feel many things I'd never felt before. It made me feel sad and it made me appreciate that other people do have lives and thoughts even if they're not as complex as mine, it made me feel defensive on John's behalf and angry for him because his parents showed him such distain. I heard the whole conversation because John couldn't bear to use his phone as the last text he'd received was from Harry, there was no question of him using my phone as it's only used for business and besides, we couldn't quite locate it at that moment and Mrs Hudson insists on keeping all the landlines on speaker for 'security' or something ridiculous like that. Here is what I heard:

RING RING, RING RING, RING-

WOMAN: HELLO?

JOHN: HI, MUM, DON'T HANG UP, PLEASE

WOMAN: NIGEL!

JOHN: LISTEN, YEAH DO GET DAD

MAN: JOHN, WE TOLD YOU NOT TO PHONE HERE

JOHN: I KNOW BUT I HAVE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU. ARE YOU SITTING DOWN?

MAN: JOHN, WHAT IS IT? IS SOMETHING WRONG?

JOHN: YES

WOMAN: HANG UP ON HIM

MAN: CAROL, IF SOMETHING'S WRONG THEN WE SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM; FORGIVE AND FORGET YEAH?

WOMAN: OKAY, WHAT IS IT JOHN, HURRY UP BECAUSE I HAVE BROCOLLI COOKING

JOHN: ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE SITTING DOWN?

WOMAN: YES

JOHN: IT'S ABOUT HARRY…

WOMAN: SHE FOUND YOU THEN?

JOHN: NO. SHE'S, I'M SORRY…MUM, SHE'S…SHE'S… DEAD.

MAN: THAT'S A LIE.

Then the receiver was replaced and John sank to his knees by the phone table and cried.


	5. Chapter 5

**John**

That night Harry's body haunted me. I had fallen asleep almost immediately because I was so emotionally exhausted.

I was in our parent's house, sitting in the kitchen with mum and dad. They were speaking about how sorry they were for disowning me and how proud they were of all I'd achieved. Dad told me that it didn't matter that I'd been discharged from the army, that he understood me and that I could stay with them for as long as I needed. Mum said that I had always been her favourite and that Harry had nothing on me. Just then the door opened slowly and the faceless, blood plastered body of Harry staggered into the room and reached out for me, her rotting fingernails were falling off and she was caressing my cheeks with them. I felt her accusing me for murdering her and stealing her place in the hearts' of our parents. I felt her hands and arms fill my mouth and choke me, snaking down my throat. I resisted the urge to vomit or fight back. I welcomed my own death. I deserved it.

**Sherlock**

I was engrossed in updating my website, The Science of Deduction from my bed when the scream perpetrated the wall and filled my head. I left my room and ran to John's, wrapping my dressing gown more tightly around me as I did so. John was writhing in his bed yelling Harry's name then omitting a loud, sobbing gulp for air and then another yell, over and over, louder and louder until it seemed the walls might collapse from the grief. He was asleep with his sheets strewn about him, shouting and sweating so much that his hair and pyjamas were stuck to him. His fists were clenched and his teeth were making an unpleasantly loud sound as they grinded together. The tendons in his neck and the veins in his forehead were raised significantly and his face was red from the effort of hollering so loudly.

I climbed into John's bed and used a method I'd learnt from Mycroft to wake him. I pressed my fingers hard to the pressure points on the top of his head and the back of his neck and twisted. John sat bolt upright and grabbed my shoulders, leaning forward and breathing heavily, probably partially because he was frightened and confused and mostly because his found the way he had been woken considerably painful. I could deduce nothing of any importance from his appearance. Only that he had a date that evening he had forgotten about, he had been dreaming about his parents before Harry came into the proceedings and that he was pleased to see me, something I wasn't used to.

"Oh, Jesus Christ!" He said, "Thank you."

"I've been called many things," I quipped back, "But never Jesus Christ. I like it; it makes me feel powerful and important."

"I am not going to start calling you Jesus Christ."

"Okay, just a thought."

John smiled at me and looked less like an eighty year old who'd seen too much and more like something approaching his own age.

We sat up all that night because John didn't want to go back to sleep and he needed me. I was needed not for my competency in the science of deduction but for my merits as a person, as a friend. The feeling was unfamiliar but beautiful, it made something inside me swell with pride and wash out my veins with warmth. We drank endless cups of coffee and watched endless reruns of depressingly predictable American dramas while the sky lightened and I held John Hamish Watson's hand. At 5.32am John asked me what was happening with Harry.

"Lestrade has closed the case." I replied, "He says all the evidence was destroyed in the explosion."

"I bet you could find some though, right? You'd work it out?"

"Maybe, there's a small chance. It has rained since yesterday so-"

"We better get started then."

"No, John, I've told Lestrade we weren't taking this case. You're too involved-"

"All the more reason-"

"The case is closed."

"So reopen it."


	6. Chapter 6

**John**

Once I had reassured Sherlock that I would be fine revisiting the bomb site and we had shared a slice of toast smeared liberally with Mrs Hudson's marmalade we went outside and hailed a cab. The morning was now sunny but I felt like cold and misery had seeped into my bones, I felt as if Sherlock was my life support machine, without him I would die of a broken heart, of trying to be strong for too long, of the suffocating pain that had settled itself like a lump of lead in my stomach. Throughout the journey Sherlock shot concerned glances in my direction but enveloped my hand in his pale, long fingered one and squeezed it. His touch told me that he was going nowhere and that I wasn't either, that I was a strong person who could stay sane. I didn't know what I felt but every time I looked into the void of his all-seeing eyes I couldn't help but smile.

Sherlock supported my waist with his arm when we left the taxi, keeping me standing proud and strong and indestructible. When we were together, no one could knock us down. Some police officers were vaguely wandering around in the rubble behind a line of blue and white tape. I followed Sherlock as he confidently ducked under said tape and strode up to the nearest police officer; a young woman with red hair pulled back into a loose knot at the bottom of her neck, her face was pale and freckled.

"Hello!" Sherlock said, "What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing."

"Oh, sorry, so rude of me; Sherlock Holmes, this is my colleague, John Watson."

"So you're the one Lestrade told me about."

"Yes. Incidentally he told me this case was now closed."  
"Well, yes, it has been closed officially. We're just trying to determine the cause of the explosion; neighbours are saying the gas is dodgy."

"The explosion was caused by a nokia phone being rewired into charges of gunpowder and dynamite with the digital display of a watch, some very complicated work well done; I'm afraid I can't be more specific as I only had a quick look at the phone but it was nothing to do with dodgy gas although they're right, there's a gas leak at number 42. Anyway, I can say that this case is now reopened with Lestrade's blessing. We can almost definitely positively verify the body as that of Harriet Watson but I'll be able to say for sure if I'd had a good look around, providing of course that CSI haven't obliterated all traces that could be important by trampling all over them, I'll also be able to find the murder weapon, assuming this is a murder, which I am, within the week. If you and your friends could vacate the area for approximately an hour, we'd be very much obliged."

I think the police officer was understandably terrified by Sherlock's attempt at a friendly grin and did as she was told.

Sherlock and I had the remains of the bombed out house to ourselves.

"We'll start with the stairs." Sherlock announced, as if there were any other area of the building was still intact. I stood by as Sherlock cautiously crawled all over the half-broken stair case with his magnifying lens, muttering about how downhill CSI were going. As I stared listlessly around the rubble something red caught my eye about two metres away which I headed towards curiously. I knelt down to have a closer look at it, pushing away a slab of rock it was under and realised with a sudden flood of revulsion that it was a ragged hunk of bruised flesh, with a tiny amount of checked material attached to it. It was about a fifteen centimetre squared section of Harry's body.

"Sherlock!" I shouted, grabbing the first word that came into my head and hollering it as I shuffled backwards on my bum through the rubbish, "Sherlock!"

My rapid backward progress was halted by Sherlock's firm grip on my shoulders.

"What is it?" He asked.

I pointed in the direction of my discovery, unable to shape my mouth into the correct shape to tell him in words.

"Ah, thank you John. I had neglected to observe that piece of evidence. This will hopefully provide us with lots of information. It even looks like CID and CSI haven't had their grubby fingers all over it. Excellent!" Sherlock strode cheerfully off to study the section of my sister's body and I lay on my back in the dust and shrapnel, laughing and crying at the same time.

**Sherlock**

The meat was from the upper left section of the stomach. I took a sample of the yellow fat dripping from its underside and from the scabbed tissue on its top, also taking the area of shirt material and pocketed them for analysis in the lab later. From the messily serrated edges of the piece of meat I knew that it had been separated from the rest of the body, which was no doubt now lying in buried in bits all over the site, when the explosion had gone off. It was unfortunate that the body had been almost completely obliterated. This was probably the largest fragment I'd be able to find. I reached inside my pocket for a plastic bag and wrapped the specimen in it before replacing it back into my coat, then I headed back towards the stairs to continue my study of them.

I wouldn't have noticed John if I hadn't by chance looked down when I was about to step on his face. He was lying, staring at the sky, his whole body wracked with sobs and mirth, amongst the lumps of concrete and splinters of glass. Neither the tears nor the laughter were stronger and I could see John trying to make one of them win.

"John?" I asked, "Are you alright?"

He answered me very slowly, taking a shuddering breath in preparation for each word, "My…life…is…so…ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"Yes." He laughed, "Yes, because of you."

"Oh, I see. You find what I do ridiculous."  
"No," John sat up and leaned his head onto his knees, breathing heavily and gaining some control over himself, "I find you ridiculous."

"Oh." I must say I was rather taken aback, "Why?"

"You're sick. You enjoy this; you sit at home waiting for people to be horribly killed so you can show off your bloody science of deduction rubbish-"

"I have a gift." I cut across him, "I am a genius; what am I supposed to do with my abilities? Three quarters of the Met's cases would be left unsolved without me. What I do helps people, l bring some level of closure to them. "

John just stares at me silently for fifty eight seconds, clenching and unclenching his fists before saying "Right. Sure, well I'm sorry. I'm not normally like this."

"It's alright. I'm sorry as well."


	7. Chapter 7

**John**

After an awkward silence Sherlock said, "I think I'll take these samples to the lab straight away. Do you want to come?"

"No, thanks, I'll just go home. Is that alright?"

"Sure."

I took a cab back to Baker Street alone.

Just as I had closed the door to 221B my mobile rung, "Hello?" I answered it as I crossed the room to sit in a chair which gave me a view of the people-infested streets of central London.

"Hi, John," said the person on the other end of the line; I hadn't noticed their caller ID, "It's Bill, Bill Murray."

"Bill! Hi!" I replied, I always feel embarrassed when speaking to Bill because he was the one who carried me, bleeding, screaming and slipping in and out of consciousness to safety after I'd been shot in Afghanistan but he was also one of my oldest friends who had still wanted to know about me when I'd gone loony, "How are you?"

"I'm great thanks. Listen… I'm in London now, do you fancy a coffee?"

I didn't but "What the Hell, sure." Is what I said.

We organised a rendez vous at a café a few streets away and decided to meet there in half an hour. I text Sherlock to tell him.

The café was part of a chain, all chrome and leather and groups of stay at home mothers and their grizzling children. I spotted Bill in the far corner, waving frantically in my direction, an enthusiastic smile plastered all over his face. I weaved my way through the tables of ladies doing lunch towards him. When I reached him we shook hands uncomfortably before he pulled me into a bear hug which nearly knocked all the air out of my lungs.

"How's the shoulder?" he asked my neck.

"Oh, you know, fine. Still hurts a bit sometimes. Could've been a lot worse." I told the wall over his shoulder.

"And the…um… leg?"

"Oh," I felt myself reddening, "Fine. Better. Gone, actually."

"Glad to hear it."

This hug was going on for a little too long so I began the routine of tactfully extracting myself from it when Bill sighed gently, "I heard about Harry."

I froze. Staring at the navy fibres of Bill's fleece and feeling them tickle my face.

"Your parents phoned me" Bill continued, "I think they're worried about you."

I cleared my throat to try and unlodge the lump that had settled itself there, "Right. Shall we sit down?"

"Good thinking."

We sat and ordered two lattes and a slice of carrot cake to share and continued our conversation.

"I hear she was murdered." Bill said.

"Probably. Sherlock's on it; he'll work it out."

"I'm sure he will."

"Really?"

"Yeah!" I received what I assume was supposed to be a chummy slap on the thigh under the table, "Despite what some people say, I think your mate knows what he's talking about. I read your blog you know."

"Yeah," I said, feeling more than a tad awkward.

"Seriously though John, your parents really are very worried about you. They were ashamed to contact you themselves, I think, so they asked me to. How are you bearing up?"

I felt the pain and the emptiness surrounding me and filling me up and eating me from the inside out; I sidestepped the question, "How are _they _bearing up?"

Bill ran a hand through his thick dark hair and sighed melodramatically, "They didn't sound too good to be honest. Your mother kept bursting into tears and your father couldn't bring himself to say her name."

"Right." I was struggling to stop my own eyes welling up at the thought of my poor old parents seeing shadows of Harry in every room of their house, struggling to cope with their devastation. Suddenly I wondered what I was doing sitting in a café with a man I only mildly liked, who had saved my life once but who was now making it significantly more awkward, embarrassing and boring, waiting for carrot cake which would do nothing to fill the vast void which had opened inside me when I could be with the person who made everything okay, who would sort it all out.

"Sorry," I said, pushing back my chair, "It's been great and we must catch up again sometime but I really must be going."

I passed our carrot cake on my way out.

**Sherlock**

I don't know when John arrived at the lab, all I know is that he wasn't there when I asked him to pass me my phone an two hours and thirteen minutes after I had begun my examination of the evidence I'd collected from the bomb site but he was when I finished my inspection, three hours and forty six minutes after I had commenced it.

"Anything?" John asked as we stepped out of St. Bart's onto the bitter evening street.

"Yes." I replied, "Lots."

We walked on in silence for eleven seconds and then John said, "Would you care to elaborate?"

"When we get home." I hissed as we climbed into a taxi, not wishing to shout my deliberations where just anyone could hear them, "Anyway, where have you been?"

"I met a friend of mine, Bill, from the army."

"Ah, yes, the one who saved you."

"yes." Through gritted teeth.

"He knew about Harry?"

"Yes."

"He spent an abnormally long time hugging you?"

"Also true."

"He told you how worried your parents were?"

"Yes, look, how do you know all this?"

I always feel a spark of exhilaration when anyone asks me to show off my observation skills, "Well," I began, "There is a faint sweat mark on your trousers that is too big to have been made by your hand, someone else, then, and people don't touch other people's thighs unless they're perverts or married or trying to comfort people. You're not married, you weren't wearing your date shoes, and it is unlikely you met a pervert so the person must have been trying to comfort you, the most obvious reason for you needing comfort is your recent bereavement. There re navy fibres from someone's jacket stuck in the zip of your coat and your shirt is creased, therefore a hug, a long one to allow the fibres to stick; you don't like hugs at the best of times so I imagine it would have been uncomfortable for you. You have been keeping your hand in your phone pocket all the time I have been speaking to you, you want to phone somebody but you're nervous, who could it be? Only your parents and you wouldn't want to call them unless something had changed since the last phone call you made to them so somebody must have told you they were worried about you. Simple."

"Simple." John echoed weakly, sounding unsurprisingly unconvinced. It must be so boring to have such a non-stimulated mind.

This exchange had taken us to Baker Street so I paid the cabbie and jumped out followed, as always, by John.

"So what did you find out at the lab?" John burst out as soon as we crossed the threshold of our flat.

"Well I'm sorry to have to say that the body is definitely that of your sister. I cross matched the blood sample I sent off for yesterday which her GP had and the blood I managed to scrounge off that piece of flesh you found at the crime scene. There was some mud on the stairs which could in theory have been from any police officer's shoe but I happened to notice that Harry was wearing vans and the treads matched the pattern of mud found, the mud was acidic but most of the UK contains only alkaline soils. I know that the nearest place to here with acidic soil is either Wimbledon Park or Richmond Park I need to visit both those places and look at CCTV to see if there's any record of her. Either way, both the parks were a bit out of her way and she didn't walk on any soil after she visited the park. Her step on the stairs obviously also implies that she was killed in the building and not before so maybe she met her murderer at the park, maybe not, like I say we'll look at CCTV. There were some fingerprints on her shirt so I've sent that to Lestrade to look at to see if he can nail a fake criminal. I could find no trace of drugs of any sort in her system."

"Right..." John flopped down onto a convenient armchair and ruffled up the front of his hair with a shaking hand, "That's…that's a lot. That's good news. Isn't it?"

"Yes." I said, attempting to introduce a note of reassurance into my voice to which I was unaccustomed.

"Great. So when can we start looking at the CCTV?"

"It's almost half past seven so I think we'd better leave it until tomorrow morning. The CCTV isn't going anywhere." I paused, which I don't normally do so ploughed on and spoke my thoughts "Are you going to phone your parents or not?"

John phoned his parents and they seemed to have made things up. John used his mobile and stood at the back of the house round by the dustbins but Mrs Hudson was tactfully leaf sweeping on the other side of the garden and she reported back to me that John had been speaking very animatedly, crying a little but stopping by the end of the phone call and repeatedly saying "I love you" to his parents on the other end of the line. He was certainly considerably happier when he entered the flat after the when call than when he had exited it beforehand. I couldn't tell you how I knew he was happy, it was nothing to do with science or deduction but there was something in the way he held himself, something in his step as he wandered around the rooms. He wasn't as happy as he had been before he'd discovered the fact of Harry's death, understandably but he was less sad than he had been lately and that knowledge made me happier.


	8. Chapter 8

**John**

I slept solidly for about four hours that night and then lay in bed watching patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling, listening to the silence and waiting for dawn. It reminded me of Afghanistan; waiting for something you're excited about but don't really want to do, waiting for the waiting to be over, knowing the event will be worse than the waiting ever cracked it up to be but wanting it to come just to release you from the sickening swirl of your imagination.

When morning came I pulled on the first clothes I found in the wardrobe and went to wrestle with the coffee machine Mrs Hudson had recently bought to be more 'with it' apparently. I made a passable latte and then woke Sherlock with a questionable looking espresso in the hope that he'd be even more wired than usual so he'd want to go and look at CCTV and when he did his mind would be ready to work it over using every millimetre of his brain we mere mortals can't process. I sat in the living room, stared without seeing at the news on the TV, waiting for Sherlock. Waiting.

He eventually emerged from his room wearing his usual coat and scarf; he scrutinized me from across the room with his knife eyes.

"What took you so long?" I asked.

"I was just updating The Science of Deduction." He replied with airy indifference and a sweet smile.

I took a deep breath to stop myself from being unnecessarily cruel, "Right. Do you think we might be able to get going now to find out who killed my sister?"

Sherlock looked at me almost reproachfully, "As you so wish."

**Sherlock**

We took a cab to Wimbledon Park first, swinging by Scotland Yard on the way to pick up Lestrade who was as keen to solve the case as we were. Unsurprisingly the fingerprints I collected from Harry's Shirt were of no use to the police. Apparently they had been sent off to forensics but didn't belong to anyone with a criminal record.

"John," Lestrade said, leaning across me as he sat in the car, "I'm sorry for your loss."

John stretched his face into a tight and somewhat painful looking smile, "It's alright. It's not your fault."

Lestrade nodded and smiled and sat back against the leather of his seat.

We were all three of us squeezed in the back of the cab, John on the side next to the road, forehead resting against the window, eyes glassy and moist, breathing laboured. Trying not to cry again; I was in the middle and Lestrade was on my other side, texting his wife to apologise for how much work he'd been doing lately, he hadn't shaved for three days or slept in his own bed for two. John's thigh was against mine, sending fissions of excitement up my own every time the taxi jolted. I took John's trembling hand from his upper lip and squeezed it still.

I had already made an appointment with the gamekeeper at Wimbledon Park so he was waiting for us the gates when we arrived. On the surface he looked very smart and trim but there was a thin line of shaving foam just under the shadow of his jaw, there were crumbs of toast on one of shirt cuffs and his hair had only been combed using water; it was obvious he normally used gel by the bulge of his wallet in his pocket. Drawing all these things together it was fair to assume he'd left his house in hurry. I didn't know if this fact was significant but it only took me four seconds to work that out. That might very well be a record.

The gamekeeper shook my hand limply and said "Sherlock Holmes, I assume?" As if he were under the delusion that he lived in a spy movie.

"Yes. This is Doctor John Watson and DCI Greg Lestrade." It struck me that I was the only one out of the three of us with no official qualifications but I was the only one who had a vague clue of how to use their mind properly.

"Bob Keogh." Said the gamekeeper.

"Brilliant." John cut in, "Shall we get going, then?"

"Of course. The security control hub is on the other side of the park, I'm afraid, you will notice as we walk through how well maintained our grounds are. You know, we hire certain sections of this park out to some extremely illustrious people-"

"That's great," John interrupted, "But it's not why we're here today."

I put my hand on John's arm and felt the blood racing through tense arteries, "Just try to calm down," I whispered to him, "I realise you're frustrated but you just need to be patient, okay? I can promise you that I will do everything within my power to solve this case."


	9. Chapter 9

**John**

After a long and probably mostly unnecessary ramble through beautifully kept lawns we all crowded into a stone shed about four metres squared and crowded in TVs extending from brackets on the far wall above a desk with several wheeled chairs tucked under each. Each TV showed a grainy green tinted image of some well-manicured lawn or flowerbed or other.

"If your dead girl was there." Said Bob the game keeper, "We'll find out." He pushed a pile of about ten video tapes towards us from one corner of the desk and then walked out with a curt "I'll leave you boys to it then."

"Gay." Sherlock said.

"I beg your pardon?" Lestrade countered, looking up from the videos which he was poring over with me.

"That gamekeeper. Gay."

"How…?" I began.

"The lining of his jacket."

"Right," Lestrade raised his eyebrows at me.

"Anyway. Let's get on with watching these films then," Sherlock announced loudly to the room at large, then he seized my arm and leaned in very close to me so I could feel his breath on my cheek and whispered, "Remember, John, don't get your hopes up, she may have gone to Richmond Park, alright?"

I nodded.

Sherlock clapped me on the shoulder and spun around to face the TVs. Lestrade inserted to first tape for the day of the murder into the machine.

The day crawled by. We spent hours watching video after video of grass, trees and flowers. I was restless with nervous energy and I couldn't stop my whole body trembling slightly as time went by. Sometime around midday Lestrade left and then came back with a packet of hobnobs which all three of as shared, keeping our eyes fixed on the CCTV footage. My eyes had glazed over, my mind was wandering nowhere in particular, a glance at my watch told me I'd been sitting on the same chair for six and a half hours.

"John!" Sherlock's voice shot through the air like a bullet.

I sat up, "What?" but then I saw it. On every chunky TV screen there was an image of Harry, standing nervously next to a bush sculpted into the shape of a swan, glancing at her watch as she took long sips out of a can of beer.

"She's waiting for someone." Sherlock noted.

"Her killer?" Suggested Lestrade.

I didn't care at that moment who she was waiting for or that she was drinking. I cared that she was breathing, that she was alive. The image was horrendous quality but I could make out her sharp face peeping out of a drawstring black hoodie, drawn tight around her face.

"What time is this footage from?" Sherlock asked.

"Nearly five PM" Lestrade answered.

"So she ditched the hoodie between meeting whoever and being killed."

I allowed their theorising to wash over my head without hearing it. I crossed to the nearest TV and stabbed my fingers at the screen, wanting to touch Harry, to feel her skinny frame beneath my skin. I wished my hands could reach through the glass to her, to pick her up and hold her to me, to apologise for being so rude to her because she had a drink problem and because she's left her girlfriend. I just wanted her to be alive. All that my touch felt was the cold heartless screen of the television, all it rewarded me with was the scrabble of my nails skittering over its surface and sending spikes of pain jarring up my fingers. My vision was becoming blurred with tears as I continued to fruitlessly poke at the display. Harry was still glancing at her watch, occasionally puffing out her cheeks in impatience or exasperation like she always used to and tipping her head back to catch the dregs from her beer. A hand between my shoulder blades made me jump, "What do you think, John?" Sherlock breathed into my ear, keeping his hand to my back. I could feel the curls of his hair ticking my cheek and see the sharp lines of his chin and cheekbones out of the corner of my eye.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I wasn't listening."

**Sherlock**

Lestrade and I had come to the conclusion, actually I tell a lie; I had come to the conclusion while Lestrade nodded and made noises of affirmation at everything I said, that the girl, Harry, was waiting to meet someone at 5 PM, someone she wasn't supposed to be seeing because of the way she was trying and failing be invisible, checking her watch and drinking like it was her profession; most probably her murderer or at least someone who was planning to take her somewhere. She was wearing shoes that were obviously her most comfortable pair so she was expecting to be wearing them for a while, indicative of travelling. Once I relayed all this to John he nodded listlessly; I wasn't sure if he'd even heard me. He was staring entranced at the CCTV image of his sister. I was a little affronted that he didn't want to listen to my brilliant ideas but I had gained a small amount of knowledge on feelings since I had begun observing John and I realised it would be more sensible thing to leave him alone and speak to Lestrade about what I'd observed.

The next frame of CCTV showed Harry throwing the beer can into the bush next to which she was standing. That would still be there and might provide valuable information if it hadn't been picked up by any of the game keeper's litter-picking minions. Then at 5.03PM another person entered the picture. They were wearing an identical hoodie to Harry's. At first all I could see was their back but as they grasped Harry's hand and shook it I noticed several uniform scars along the wrist; it looked like self-harm but I kept it my head in case it was significant. After exchanging a minimal amount of words the two people turned around to face the camera and I was able to see that the second person was a man of around twenty years of age with similar facial piercings to Harry in fact their nose piercings were exactly the same- a silver ring with a snake curled around it. There was, I saw, a dark dried residue of what I thought was most probably blood down the side of neck beneath one of his ears which he kept rubbing self-consciously. I communicated all this to Lestrade and he then came to endearingly sweet but utterly incorrect inclusion that the two people were girlfriend and boyfriend.

"Wrong." I told him.

"Ok," Lestrade said, sounding annoyed, "What then, Genius?"

"He's supplying her with something, probably alcohol given her habit. I'm guessing the nose piercing and hoodie is some sort of sign so they know who to supply what to. There's got to be some sort of illegal alcohol trading business going on here. I'll get the Baker Street Irregulars onto it."

Lestrade opened his mouth to speak but what he wanted to say had already crossed my mind so I cut him off with a statement of a fact, "There's no such thing as coincidences."

I decided that was all we could gather from the CCTV and that our next stop was the bush and the beer can; if there was no beer can there, and then a walk through London to tell my homeless network their assignment and after that I would have to try to find Harry's hoodie. My most impending problem, however, was tactfully extracting John from the CCTV hut. He was staring wide eyed at the screen, still with his fingers touching it, even though the image of Harry was long gone and all he could see was a gravel path and a bush.

"John?" I called to him and he half turned to me, there were silent tears dripping slowly down his face and off his chin. It made me feel uncomfortable and I was just searching through my mind palace for what people normally said to their only friends who were crying. There was nothing; I literally had no knowledge of what to do. I tried to imagine how I'd feel if Mycroft died and decided that it would hurt. Mycroft had brought me up on his own since our mother killed herself with an accidental overdose of cocaine and he was a very useful contact to have in the government. I never do things without thinking but I did then. I held John close to me and he felt too small and fragile in my arms, as if I could break him by squeezing him too hard but I knew he was already broken on the inside; that he'd been broken ever since I'd known him.

"Sherlock-" John choked, struggling against my embrace.

"It's alright." I found myself saying, "I'm here."

"Sherlock-" John repeated, pushing against my chest.

"Sherlock," Lestrade took my shoulder and pulled me off John who sank to his knees on the floor and took four deep breaths, "He's alright." Lestrade told me.


	10. Chapter 10 WARNING: CONTAINS GAY KISS

**John**

Once I'd recovered from Sherlock's well meaning, winding, rib-crushing hug the three of us marched off in search of a beer can. Lestrade kept asking me if I was alright at the same time as shooting Sherlock concerned looks as if wondering if he was allowed to arrest him on behalf of the safety of anyone Sherlock tried hugging in the future. I kept saying I was fine, which I was, sort of. My thoughts were swirling around my head, confusing me. It had felt good when Sherlock was holding me even though he was slowly suffocating me like a boa constrictor would its prey. He had told me was there for him and I had known it was true. It was difficult to admit this to myself but the main reason I had wanted him to let go of me was that I wanted to kiss him.

Anyway, once we reached the bush that Harry had been standing next to on the CCTV footage. Lestrade and I stood on the gravel, Lestrade's eyes raking the ground for clues while Sherlock immediately lay on his stomach in the dirt with his head shoulders underneath the bush, all the while muttering an incoherent stream of observations to himself.

"Are you okay?" Lestrade asked me again.

"Yes." I said, still trying to wrap my head around all the feelings that were filling me up.

Lestrade nodded and called to Sherlock, "Are you alright down there?"

"Fine." Came the muffled reply, "There beer can is still here but I'm analysing it where it is because I don't want either of you two to contaminate it."

I rolled my eyes at Lestrade and he aimed a kick at Sherlock's feet.

"Ouch!"

"Yeah, well," Lestrade huffed, "I am a professional police officer. I'm not going to contaminate any evidence."

"Well," Sherlock said, retreating from the bush with dust all down his front and leafy twigs in his hair, "I'm a professional consulting detective and you enlisted my help on this case. I have finished with the beer can. You may study it if you wish to."

"Nah." Said Lestrade grumpily as I helped Sherlock to his feet, "You're alright, thanks."

Sherlock had found some fibres from Harry's hoodie which was presumably the same sort as the man was wearing to the ring pull of the beer can. He gave the tiny strings of material to Lestrade to get his people onto and took me for a walk around London, just the two of us. I t would have been very romantic had Sherlock not scribbled frenziedly onto a napkin on the bus to Hyde Park and then ripped the paper into about twenty pieces and handed a bit to every beggar we came across as we walked to Baker Street.

"Erm… what are you doing?" I ventured to ask Sherlock as he walked away from an obvious heroin addict tucked in alcove between two office buildings.

"I am simply telling my operatives of our conundrum. They will now all be on the lookout for such a person as we saw with Harry because they'll know money's in it for them. I bet you anything you like we'll track this man down before Lestrade does with his chemical analysis from the hoodie."

"This isn't a contest." I reminded Sherlock as he bent down to hand a piece of paper to a grubby teenage boy holding a coffee cup. "Also, do you go asking help from the homeless of London often?"

"Only on cases such as these when they'll be useful. They give me information and I give them money. Everybody wins."

"Money they'll use to feed their drug habits." I stated.

"Only some of them, and yes. They can use it for whatever they want. Their lives are so miserable and boring I'd turn to drugs."

"You already have." I pointed out to him.

"Yes, Well" He replied, dropping a slip of paper into a tramp's hat. "It runs in my family."

Sherlock had never spoken to me about his family before and I'd assumed his and Mycroft's parents were dead.

"What do you mean?" I asked, slightly afraid that all my perceptions of Mycroft being a good influence were about to go down the drain.

"My mother was a cocaine addict and she killed herself with it when I was eight and Mycroft was twelve. What clean person would call their children Mycroft and Sherlock?" Sherlock spoke hurriedly, not looking at me as we turned the corner into Baker Street, "She had me hooked before I was even born but I got off it by the time she died. The authorities didn't know about us and we didn't want them to so Mycroft and I lived by ourselves until I was old enough to look after myself." There was a pause in which I didn't know what to say, "I wanted to solve the mystery." Sherlock said, and I must confess I was astounded by this sudden display of emotion and I wasn't entirely sure how to cope with it.

"What mystery?" I managed to ask as Sherlock jammed his key into the lock of 221B.

"The mystery of my mother's death. Of course there was no mystery. Mycroft told me what had happened and I knew he was right but I still felt that our own mother wouldn't have left us in such a selfish way…but she did; and that's that." Sherlock used his shoulder to push the door and flew up the stairs to our flat in front of me. I couldn't see his face.

**Sherlock**

I suppose the only reason I told John is so he'd know that I had felt some of the pain and confusion that he was feeling. Not that I felt it anymore; it was probably around that time that I cut off all my feelings, it was only since knowing John that I'd begun to accept my own weaknesses and humanity once more. Mycroft would be proud and mortified all at once.

It was three minutes past midnight and I was lying in bed with my laptop in front of me on the pillows when I received a text.

_John told me you told him about mother._

_ It's good to see you're opening up to_

_ Someone. Really, I'm thrilled. Just _

_ Disappointed that you didn't chose me._

_ MH_

I assumed that was supposed to be a criticism but it didn't upset me; I was, in fact, rather bemused by this uncharacteristic display of emotion from Mycroft. The whole world seemed to have turned very strange lately. I doubting my competency as a detective because I was too busy trying to embrace my human side and comfort John through his grief. The hug thing had been a complete failure and by telling my best friend about my past I had upset my brother. I didn't care about Mycroft's feelings enough to be worried about this but I did care about John's feelings and I hoped I'd pleased him by metaphorically ripping open my chest and showing him my heart and soul.

John came into the room. I heard him but pretended not to; it was not normal for him to walk into my bedroom at such an hour and I wanted to see what he did as I pretended to concentrate on updating my guide on spotting different types of cigarette ash. I felt John sit on the end of bed and swing his legs over so his whole body was on my silk duvet cover.

"Sherlock?" He asked, leaning in until I could feel his hot breath on my cheek and his rapid pulse drumming into my shoulder from his neck.

I felt my blood speed up as it pumped through my veins and my breath catch in my throat, "John?" I replied.

"Thank you." He breathed and I didn't know what he was thanking me for so I didn't reply; instead I snapped my laptop shut and placed it under the bed. I rolled over onto my back and saw that John had positioned himself almost directly on top of me. He altered his position slightly so one of hands was on each side of my torso and his face was inches away from mine. I could smell alcohol on his breath but I didn't want him to go away. Our noses were almost touching.

He was sweating, his pupils were dilated and his pulse was accelerated. He was aroused. I was sweating, my pupils were dilated, my pulse was accelerated and I was feeling some rush of blood in my penis that I hadn't felt since I was about sixteen and on my own in the cavernous mansion that was my childhood home. John's lips suddenly closed over mine. I had never kissed anyone before and I realised this was yet another thing I had a severe lack of knowledge of. John parted my lips with his tongue and ran it along my teeth. I tentatively reached out to his head and entangled my fingers in his hair as I attempted to reciprocate what he was doing to my mouth.


	11. Chapter 11

**John**

We only kissed; nothing else. I just wanted to let Sherlock know how much I appreciated all he'd tried to do for me and how I never wanted to be without him. I had had no life before him and I would have no life after. He was my life. I had been so alone and he had saved me and now, even when I felt I was teetering between the abyss of desperation I never wanted to go again and clinging onto my life Sherlock had opened himself up to me and reached out with words. He had told me about his mother which must have been very painful and certainly Mycroft had seemed surprised when I'd told him by text. I owed my very existence to Sherlock Holmes.

As soon as Sherlock had slunk off into his room to ruminate to the evidence we'd collected I knew that I was going to kiss him. I'd been repressing what I'd felt for him for quite a long time and had it with pretending so his sharing his feelings with me provided the perfect excuse. I couldn't do such things without losing my inhibitions so I sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and drank a few beers which I'd retrieved from next to a new edition of severed toes in the fridge. On about the third beer I texted Mycroft about what Sherlock had told me and I even told him how I felt about his brother; as you may be able to deduce, I don't have a very high resistance to alcohol. After four cans of beer I considered myself drunk enough to kiss Sherlock and use my drunkenness as an excuse in the morning if things didn't go to plan. I was also drunk enough to think I was doing to the right thing.

After we'd kissed we lay next to each other on Sherlock's bed; he was under the sheets and I was on top of them. There were five layers between us. Sherlock was breathing heavily, I could see his chest expanding and contracting sharply beside me. I left Sherlock's room when I was sure he wasn't going to talk to me. I thought I would definitely be using my mildly inebriated state as an excuse for my seemingly spontaneous and almost certainly deluded actions in the morning.

**Sherlock**

I think I was probably in shock. John had kissed me. I had been kissed. I had lost my kiss-ginity. I had also enjoyed it but I didn't know whether I was quite to up to fully acknowledging that fact just yet. I lay on my after John had left the room and took deep breaths through my obstinate grin. I found that I had been subconsciously waited for the kiss to happen; it had seemed a natural continuation of our relationship although I thought that we would perhaps both be sober and it would be a bit more anticipated than it actually was. I had been thrown off balance by the sudden appearance of my drunken best friend lying on top of me and enthusiastically attempting to choke me with his tongue.

The authenticity of the feeling behind the act was questionable and I decided that John had probably only done it because he was feeling alone and vulnerable and I had revealed a small fraction of my innermost feelings to him so he had drunk himself silly and decided to thank me by introducing me to the art of kissing. With tongues. He would most likely have no recollection of the event in the morning which made me a mixture of sad and relieved. Anyway I was rather concerned by the way my thoughts were becoming almost as romantic as one of John's blogs so I cut them off abruptly; another talent I possess, and ruminated on the case for the rest of the night. I was restless at my inability to do anything useful until I visited the various members of my homeless network about the matching hoodies and illegal alcohol trading the following morning. I slept, for a time, which is a rare occurrence if you're me, which I am and when I slept I dreamt, which is even rarer.

In my dream I was sitting on a bench on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the churning grey sea forty feet below me. The cliff seemed to be eroding before my eyes and the scrabbly white sand in which the bench was fixed was slowly skittering over the precipice and into the violent swell of boiling froth. I was surprisingly calm considering my situation but at the same time perfectly aware that I could not and would not get off the bench. The ground was shifting beneath me and the bench was leaning further and further over the edge of the cliff until I was almost at a ninety degree angle to the swirling mass of ocean far beneath me. I seemed to be attached to the bench by some force other than gravity because if I hadn't been I would have already fallen off. I knew the bench and I would plunge into the waves and sink together. Before I met this fate, however, My eye snapped open and I was completely awake once more.

John was struggling into a cream cable knit jumper and few feet from the edge of my bed and yelling my name through the crochet.

"What is it?" I asked him, before remarking uncharacteristically uselessly "I was having a dream."

John ignored my unhelpful statement and growled "There are about a million tramps at the door who've scared poor Mrs Hudson almost out of her wits and now she's come to me. I assume they belong to you."

I sprung out of bed and jogged easily to the door, disregarding John's protests of "You're in your pyjamas!"

Behind the front door there were in fact only five tramps, all of whom belonged to my Baker Street irregulars; I opened the door and planted my feet firmly apart so my entire body was blocking the doorway and therefore protecting Mrs Hudson, who was cowering in a doorway in the hall, from the homeless. How ironic. The people were crowding on the moonlit pavement, shoving each other and clamouring at me all at once to try to be the first to present information and so receive money from me.

"Ladies and gentleman," I said to them, "Please calm yourselves. I will pay every one of you twenty-five pounds for troubling yourself to turn up here at this hour, although you could really just have waited until the morning in future, and I will increase that sum by what I see fit to whosoever provides me with information that is personally or professionally interesting to me or the case I am currently working on. Alright?"

The members of my homeless network arranged themselves into a grumbling despondent huddle on the doorstep and when I asked them to, formed an orderly line.

"Yes?" I asked the man at the front of the queue.

He coughed, sniffed, and held out grubby hands towards me, "Twenty-five pound, please." He said. I could tell from his manner and his shoes that he had no information, he just wanted the initial money.

"Ah, of course," I replied, taking a deep breath before hollering "John!" up the stairs.

"What?" John shouted back.

"Can you please bring down my wallet? It's in one of the boots in my wardrobe!" I yelled, well aware that I would now have to change its hiding place to prevent anybody who could hear my proclamation from stealing its contents. I plastered what I hoped was a reassuring smile over my face and said to the homeless man, "Thank you sir, if you could please join the back of the line, your money will be here shortly."

"You haven't asked if I've got any information."

"Well, have you?"

"No."

"Well, then, why would I?"

The man sniffed again, turned on his heel and trudged to the end of the queue.

The woman now at the front of the queue was wearing an outfit composed mostly of bin bags which exposed her left arm, bruised with needle sticks. I could tell from the way she'd put her hair up, different to normal, that she had something to tell me but that it wasn't what I'd asked to know.

"What information to you have for me?" I asked

"Well, it's not strictly what you wanted to know but there's a bloke who calls himself Septimus who gives out heroin. For free. It's probably laced."

"I'm sorry," I reply, "I already knew that but thank you anyway.

She nodded and joined the back of the line.

The next man looked more promising; I'd never seen him before so he'd obviously been told what I needed to know by one of his acquaintances who wouldn't have told him about him about me unless he thought there was money in it, therefore this man must have something genuinely useful to share with me. I could tell he was German from the way he'd cut his fingernails and I could tell he'd recently been masturbating or giving another man a hard on because there was residue of his sperm under them. Five seconds.

"Hello." I said to him, "Do you have anything of any interest for me?"

The man shifted from foot to foot, occasionally glancing shiftily up at me from beneath heavily lidded eyes.

"Yes?" I said, losing patience.

"I," The man began, "There is money in this for me, yes?"

"Yes."

"I know this person you spoke of. They sell alcohol to many people. Very much alcohol, very cheap. They meet in different places every time and with different people; there is always a sign. Maybe a piece of clothing, maybe something other like a piercing or a hairpin…" He shrugged, "They have one base but I don't know where that is. They call themselves the Moonblood Cult."

"Right. Thank you very much. Please go to the back of the line and wait to receive your payment."

I had drawn up a map of London in my brain and deduced that there were thirteen possible premises big enough to hold copious amounts of alcohol and generally unknown enough to stay hidden from the authorities and me. I heard John coming down the stairs behind me and turned around to take my wallet from him. Our hands touched as I did so and shivered involuntarily as a chill fission of excitement shot through my veins like cocaine at the feeling of John's skin beneath my fingertips. I sought for John's eyes in the half-darkness but he thrust the wallet at me and reddened, his eyes sliding to look at the frayed carpet.

None of the other homeless had anything of any significance to tell me so I dished out the money to them all, twenty-five pounds to each, plus fifteen to the heroin addict for what I already knew and forty to the German man for what I didn't.


	12. Chapter 12

**John**

"Anything?" I asked Sherlock when he reappeared through the door of 221b, doing my very best keep a healthy distance between us and attempting to sound only professionally interested.

"Yes." Sherlock replied vaguely and completely unhelpfully as he drifted into his bedroom without meeting my eyes.

"What?" I elaborated through the door of Sherlock's bedroom which had just been slammed in my face.

There was a long silence so I rapped my knuckles on the door and called, "Sherlock? What did you find out?"

Sherlock opened the door and stuck his head out so that I had to nearly dislocate my neck to ensure we didn't touch each other's faces.

"The Moonblood Cult is what it's called apparently, this secret organisation which sells alcohol in bulk very cheaply. Apparently they meet their customers in a different place for every transaction, one at a time. They have a sign so that they know who's who on both sides, that's I suppose why Harry and the man were wearing the hoodies but the piercings must be for some other reason, maybe they met through another group of people whose sign is to wear those piercings. I don't know what that is yet but Lestrade may have something on his books or I can always ask the Baker Street Irregulars again. The Moonblood Cult apparently operates from only one place, which I find hard to believe, but anyway I have a shortlist of thirteen suitable building for headquarters. In the morning we'll pick up Lestrade and go and check them out, okay?"

I nodded.

I lay awake that night thinking about Sherlock; about his weird attitude towards me since I'd kissed him. I had enjoyed that kiss. It was adorable in that he'd obviously never done anything like it before. He had been so tentatively gentle, taking my bottom lip between both of his, leaving his teeth there for what might have been conventionally considered too long. I still had a thumping headache from alcohol but the thought of Sherlock's hand in my hair and mouth on mine made it worse because my blood sped up in its excited pumping around my body. I feel guilty for feeling happy since it was so recently that Harry died. Ella would have a field day with the rampant emotions that were whizzing all around my body. I hoped so badly that it wasn't the first and last kiss I would share with the world's only consulting detective; my best friend.

I was dropping off into tentative sleep when my phone started ringing from my jeans pocket which was flung across the back of the chair on the other side of the room. I dragged myself out of bed and immediately started to shiver in the cold air, even the carpet was cold under my bare feet. The phone stopped ringing by the time I reached it but I noticed the caller had left a message. A glance at my watch told me it was 2.46am. I groaned involuntarily; anyone who phoned me at this time of night would want to me to go somewhere as quickly as possible with Sherlock which meant we would have to talk awkwardly professionally and try not to touch each other because of the sudden intimacy I'd set up between us which we'd knocked down by being embarrassed. I couldn't say I regretted it but I regretted not explaining what I'd done when I'd done it. The phone showed that whoever had called had left a message. Brilliant. Another sleepless night, then.

**Sherlock**

The kiss. The kiss. The kiss was all that I could think about, the way it filled my head and played back in slow motion over and over and over again was very unnerving; I can normally cut of certain thoughts but this was just all-consuming I don't know what. There was no name for what I was feeling. I found myself trembling all over uncontrollably and feeling alternately hot and cold and hot and cold. It was very strange. As I lay in bed with no control over my physical or mental wellbeing John entered my room for the third time that night, causing me to sit bolt upright. He threw his phone at me.

There was an indistinct answer phone message playing muffled through the speakers. The caller ID said _Greg Lestrade. _ I held the phone to my ear and climbed out of bed, rifling through the combined mess of partially completed experiments and discarded clothes on my floor to try and find something suitable to wear. I guessed we were going out somewhere. I tuned my ears into the phone and heard the message.

"John," Said Lestrade's voice, sounding considerably strained, "I've tried Sherlock's phone and he's not picking up, so please could you-" He stopped abruptly and all I could hear was the sound of laboured breathing, "Please could you help me? I'm not sure where I am; some warehouse, erm, not too far from Scotland Yard, erm, sorry I can't be more specific, you see the thing is- we, um, _I, _haven't got much time, so yes, erm, as you soon as you can please, very much appreciated." Here there was a distant roar of general disgruntled-ness from someone other than Lestrade, a whimper of combined pain and fear from Lestrade himself and a cacophony of unhealthy sounding clatters as the plastic of the phone hit concrete and somewhere further away flesh hit flesh. Then there was white noise.

This was brilliant. John and I caught a taxi as I explored all the possible warehouses Lestrade could be in and cross-matched them with the ones that could be the headquarters of the Moonblood Cult. I was positive there was at least some sort of correlation between the two. There were three possible warehouses but I directed the cabbie towards the one which was on top of a hill because I knew there would be a better phone reception there; Lestrade's message had been of good quality.


	13. Chapter 13

**John**

Throughout the journey to the first warehouse, which I hoped, and was fairly sure was the right one because Lestrade's professional pride wouldn't let him ask for our help unless he was in dire trouble and because, regrettably, Sherlock never makes mistakes; I tried Lestrade's phone number again and again with no success.

"He's not answering." I said to nobody, making a conscious effort to stop my leg nervously jiggling up and down.

"Obviously." Sherlock sighed with frustration as the car tyres crunched over the gravel in front of the warehouse, "Wait." Sherlock ordered, throwing a liberal fistful of notes at the driver before sprinting with me to the doors. It occurred to me that we should probably have made some sort of plan of action; then it occurred to me that Sherlock probably had made a plan but just chosen not to tell me. No change there then.

The beginning of dawn was on the horizon but the warehouse looming in front of us seemed to have no shape, just a size-less structure of concrete and steel silhouetted against the faded sky. I didn't know what I wanted to discover within its walls; whether I wanted it to be storage or the headquarters of the Moonblood Cult; whether I wanted Lestrade to be alive and well or bleeding to death; whether I wanted to crack this case or find nothing. My knees were shaking with adrenaline as if I was about to go on a raid with the rest of my platoon in Afghanistan except all there was, was an empty or not empty warehouse full of alcohol or not alcohol complete with the dead or not dead body of someone I'd consider a friend. And Sherlock Holmes. He held my hand then, slowly gripping my wrist and silently snaking his fingers around my hand until our fingers were interlocked. And I wasn't as scared anymore.

**Sherlock**

The heavy padlock on the double doors of the warehouse had obviously been recently forced and even more recently replaced. The job was badly done so I easily opened the door with two swift sharp kicks to the right of the lock and shouldered the doors open, dragging John behind me by the hand. I didn't need to look at him to know he'd sensibly have his army issue Browning L9A1 Pistol out and ready. The interior of the warehouse was not completely surprising to me but I must confess I was a little shocked by the blatantly obvious crates of alcohol numbering over one hundred in the middle of the almost blindingly floodlit space. Besides the stock of alcohol there were a cluster of armchairs around a coffee table, a few computers, all of which seemed to be off, but one of which wasn't and, hanging from the steels balcony off which several thick doors (probably leading to interrogation rooms) led, a double sheet sized banner which read 'The Moonblood Cult' and was liberally spattered with something that looked like blood but wasn't, it was a mixture of Dulux's 'Celebration' and 'Raspberry Bellini' paints; I noticed a snake nose piercing only slightly different to the one we saw Harry wearing on the CCTV footage. The people who worked in the Moonblood Cult were watching us though CCTV set up in a room off the main room where I assumed they also kept the rest of the alcohol. I guessed they would wait for us to find Lestrade before revealing their presence to us and probably attempting to launch some sort of attack so I took the opportunity of a few spare moments to stride across the room with John still clinging to my hand and slip the piercing into my coat pocket.

"Where is everybody?" John asked, sweeping the brightly lit room with his pistol.

"They're hiding in a room off this one, watching us and waiting for us to find Lestrade. They will've made it quite easy for us to find him so they can deal with us when we're all in one place so I'm guessing Lestrade's in one of the rooms off that balcony up there; the doors will be easy to open if they're unlocked but almost impossible to escape from if you're on the other side of them."

"Right…" John said in his usual bemused way which used to irritate me, as did most of his incessant burbling. But I now found it quite endearing.

I decided to play along with the Moonblood Cult's pathetic little hiding plan and started off up the spiralling steel stairs to find Lestrade. John's hand was small and sweaty in mine but it felt good, somehow, to know that I was looking after someone who'd kissed me, who needed me who, perhaps, wanted me. I gave every door off the clanging metal walkway a kick, stuck my head into each four metre squared room and then ran onto the next one.


	14. Chapter 14

**John**

When we reached the fourth door we found Lestrade. It was worse than I thought it would be. He was suspended in mid-air with his hands encased in dried cement in the ceiling and his feet the same on the floor. He was sagging limply forwards; his facial features and the colour of his shirt were indiscernible beneath a thick coating of blood. I could tell if he was breathing or not from this distance which meant that if he was breathing he was only just managing to do so. This was some sort of sick modern crucifixion. I pushed the pistol at Sherlock which he used to cover the corridor from the doorway.

I slipped across the blood-slick concrete floor to where Lestrade was hanging. I could see at a glance that his nose and one of his wrists was broken; his nose from a punch and his wrist from the strain of being stuck into cement and supporting the rest of his body. The blood was from a series of innumerable abrasions and lacerations inflicted by a fist with a ring on every finger and a blow to the head with something like a bat. Something like the thing that had murdered my sister; Sherlock had probably already noticed this and besides, there were more pressing matters to thing about at that moment. I had to separate the professional and personal aspects of my personality. The blow only seemed to be glancing; enough to knock Lestrade unconscious but hopefully not kill him. It was the suffocation of being stretched out like someone had steamrollered his ribcage that had done that. I put my fingers to his bloody neck to feel for a pulse. There was no answering rhythm from beneath the skin.

"He's dead." I sat backwards into the blood and entwined my hair into both my fists to stop my hands from shaking. I looked down at the sea of dark blood which I was sitting in and felt ill; it filled my eyes and my ears and my nose.

"Yes…" Sherlock said, firing a warning shot out of the door and pulling me to my feet by the back of my leather jacket, "All very unfortunate." He breathed into my neck whilst waving his gun around out of the doorway, "I know how to use this!" He yelled, "but he's not Lestrade." He continued.

"What?"

"He's the German man who told me about the Moonblood Cult. I think he runs a brothel, sorry, ran a brothel."

"Right… I suppose I was only really looking at the injuries. Did you notice-?"

"The head wound? Inflicted by similar or same weapon as murdered Harry? Of course I did."

"Right. Good. So, where is the angry mob coming to kill us for trespassing?"

"Obviously not here yet as we haven't found Lestrade. I told you they were only planning on springing their cunning little attack on us when we've found Lestrade."

**Sherlock**

The body would have to be disposed of later. I decided that John and I would have to visit the dead man's brothel to see if anyone there knew anything else about the Moonblood Cult. Later. Right now John and I seemed to have swapped places. John was stalking along the walkway, kicking doors in and checking inside each room as I walked backwards behind him, covering us with the Browning. I was beginning to think I may have made a mistake because John and I had almost gone in a full circle around the upper story of the warehouse without finding Lestrade. I could see faint brown stains of real blood, three to four years old, clinging to the hinges of the doors and stuck in the crevices of the metal floor.

John burst through the penultimate door and called my name. I stepped into the room backwards and stayed in the doorway, pointing out of the doorway with the pistol. I craned my neck round and saw John bending over the prone body of Lestrade in one corner. Sherlock Holmes doesn't make mistakes.

"Is he okay?" I asked, turning my attention back to the metal bars separating the walkway from the drop of fifteen metres and certain death to the rest of the bright white warehouse I could see out of the doorway.

"He will be." John said, "He's been beaten up pretty badly but I can't see any serious injuries. I think he's in shock."

Just then a bullet whistled past so close to my cheek I felt my flesh burn. I should have seen that coming. At that moment I abandoned the idea of facing our attackers, squeezed the trigger of the pistol in the general direction of nowhere in particular out of the door and slammed it shut with my shoulder. I stood with my back to the door and thought for three seconds before I realised that John was trying to attract my attention.

"What is it?" I asked, irritated.

"I've been shot."

I felt a shooting pain in my stomach that wasn't physical; I think it may have been concern, "I'm sorry?"

He cleared his throat, "I'm alright but, um, I've been shot."

"What? Where?"

"It's taken a chunk out of my arm. I don't think it's hit anything particularly important."

"Okay." I didn't want to move from the door in case member of the Moonblood Cult tried to knock it in.

"Apply pressure. Elevate it." Lestrade mumbled, hoisting himself into a sitting position so he and John were sitting leaning against the wall opposite me.

"I know, I know." John said, "Are you alright?"

"Yes." Lestrade replied, "Are you?"

"Yes."

Neither of them looked it. John's shirtsleeve was already turning crimson and dark blood was seeping through his shaking fingers as he clutched his arm over the bullet wound. His face was grey and glistened with a sheen of sweat. He was leaning on Lestrade's blood spattered shoulder. One of Lestrade's eyes was swollen shut with blood while his other was surrounded by a puffy purple bruise. Blood from his nose was partially dried in his stubble and splashed liberally over the collar and shoulders of his pale blue shirt. He winced every time he breathed. I diagnosed broken or at least bruised ribs. He'd received a severe kicking in the face and the chest.

The door I was leaning on shook in its frame as someone threw themselves at the other side of it. I hadn't had anywhere near adequate time to formulate a proper plan but I deduced that the Moonblood Cult, who now all seemed to be using themselves as battering rams simultaneously, would not be expecting us to attack, because it was frankly a stupid idea.

"Lestrade," I started.

He peered up at me through one puffy slit of eye.

"Are you armed?" I asked.

He nodded, "Sort of," He elaborated, gingerly searching the inside of his suit jacket until he found and produced a stout black truncheon, "I keep it for situations just like this." He wheezed.

"I'm not armed." John protested.

"Yes you are." I threw his pistol back at him.

"Well, now you're not!" Lestrade pointed out with the help of his keen detective abilities.

"I know how to use my fists." I told him.

I was glad we were going to run out of the door to take on our attackers just so I could be released from the jagged stabs of pain jarring my spine from the shaking door.


	15. Chapter 15

**John**

As adrenaline pumped through my veins, blood pumped out of them through the bullet wound in my arm. I reassured myself with the fact that I would have stopped feeling the pain or lost consciousness a long time ago if the situation was that serious, life threatening, like I had last time. I let my injured arm drop to my side and forced myself to forget about it, raising the pistol that had been with me and protected me for nearly a year on the battlegrounds of Afghanistan and cocking it. I aimed it at Sherlock's forehead which would of course be whoever came though the door's forehead. I didn't want to use the gun but I would do so willingly to protect my friends.

"Ready?" Sherlock asked, grimacing as door once again shuddered against his back.

I nodded and tried to wipe my forehead so the sweat didn't run into my eyes but I automatically used the arm which wasn't occupied with the pistol and so only succeeded in sending a searing pain up my arm and smearing my forehead liberally with blood.

"Good." Said Sherlock, "Lestrade?"

I glanced over my left shoulder at Lestrade who nodded, jaw set, and wielded his truncheon, clutching his side with his other arm. I couldn't help wondering if we were all about to be horribly murdered; I just reminded myself to keep breathing steadily. I caught Sherlock's eye before he opened the door and he winked at me, as he had the first time we met and I felt like everything might just have been going to be okay.

Sherlock stayed boring into my head with his so-blue- they-were-almost see-through eyes, never breaking the lifeline of reassurance he managed to turn on for me in the dilation of his normally nothing voids of pupils as he reached behind him to pull the heavy door open. The corridor outside was a mass of people, I couldn't discern any faces, only muscular arms, fists ready to crush the life out of lions and battered, bloodied cudgels made of wood. They were still at the moment, breathing heavily nearly in sync like bulls; I almost expected steam to be rising from their sides. They wanted us to make the first move.

I felt mildly dizzy which helped really, it gave me a sense of detachment. Blood and sweat were running from my forehead into my eyes, blurring my vision with drops of pain.

"Hello!" Sherlock began brightly, smiling an unnervingly large grin at the group of people in front of us.

He was met with a wall of stony silence.

"Oh, come now," Sherlock continued, "I know your wife has recently left you for another man; I don't blame her really, we all know your spending more time with your laptop stash than with her." By the looks of how beetroot he was turning, Sherlock was addressing a steroid-stuffed balding man who was bursting out of his black skinny jeans.

"But," Sherlock said, walking to the man until they were practically nose to nose (I was horrified to find that I had to supress a pang of jealousy) "Your business is booming, is it not? I mean your sign making business, by the way; not this one. Anyway I would like to know why, when you have a higher salary than a premier league footballer, you resort also to selling alcohol illegally. Actually I do know why, it's because you like to water down the stock you sell and drink the rest of it neat. I would like to speak to your superior and ask them why they deemed it necessary to ask you to break my friend's ribs and face and lock him in a room, shoot my other friend and now turn up here with us all severely weakened to finish us off with bludgeons of the sort that before the murders of Harry Watson and the gentleman a few rooms away hadn't been seen since dinosaurs roamed the earth."

"Um…" I ventured, "Maybe you should stop talking now. Also, dinosaurs and humans never existed simultaneously."

"I know!" Sherlock snapped, "I was talking about the dinosaurs using the bludgeons!"

I was sceptical but had no time to revel in the fact that Sherlock made a mistake almost as monumental as not knowing the basic model of the solar system because Sherlock had obviously offended the mob by connecting them to at least two murders and reading one of them like a very open, very despicable book. The people were advancing towards us. I could see they were trying to herd us through the door and keep us cornered. This was a technique I had seen in action in Afghanistan when a few members of the Taliban had pushed a few pathetically armed civilians into an alley and shot them one by one. I raised my gun arm and fired into the midst of them; aiming to miss.

**Sherlock**

The raging mob of idiots scattered as the bullet from John's gun ricocheted from the floor to the ceiling to the wall and back again off the concrete. They were bad fighters; they took too long to reconfigure themselves into their previous impenetrable block of people. I took this opportunity to throw myself into the midst of them and start throwing punches- I could tell from the Moonblood Cult's representatives' body language that they were not going to talk now- they were going to bargain the only way they knew how. With their weapons.

I felt rather than heard John and Lestrade limp up behind me as I broke a woman's nose with my fist. John was holding off a small group of people by waving the gun at them, Lestrade was whacking anyone who tried to reach John's back across the shoulders with his truncheon so there was by now a small collection of thugs crippled with pain around John's feet. Something inside me hurt; I felt the poignancy of the injured looking out for each other so stepped up to behind Lestrade and did to anyone who approached him what they'd done to him- made their faces look like third-rate dog food. I did, of course, know far more advanced martial arts but I thought I'd speak to the brawl a language they could understand.

All was going very well, as I had expected, because even Lestrade on his own was three times more experienced at organised fighting than the whole of the Moonblood Cult people put together. I was just raking my nails into the corners of someone's eyeballs when a stern voice that took me back to standing in the headmistress's office and having to explain that I'd hit the Chemistry teacher because he hadn't accepted that he was wrong and I was right rang out over a tanoy system and everyone stopped.

"As amusing as this has been to witness," The disembodied voice began, "Your fisticuffs are becoming rather tiring. Minions, please tidy yourselves up and bring our guests to me."


	16. Chapter 16

**John**

Our attackers quickly stood up straighter and attempted to smooth down all the creases in their clothes. Although there was blood running into Sherlock's eyes from a cut on his eyebrow and Lestrade and I were rather worse for were anyway, I couldn't supress a grin. Minions! Minions? Who the Hell said minions? Someone with narcissistic personality disorder, probably; I could tell Sherlock was going to get on very well with this invisible person.

My head was yanked back as someone grabbed the collar of my shirt. At the same time my arms were twisted behind my back and I couldn't stop a cry of pain burst out of my mouth as fingers dug into the gunshot wound in my arm.

"John?" I could see someone entwining their fingers with Sherlock's curls as I had what seemed so long ago and forcing his head forwards as he tried to turn to me.

"I'm fine." I reassured, feeling warm inside at his concern, "Don't worry Sherlock I'm- Fuck!" That was obviously not how I'd planned on ending that sentence but my other hand had been smashed against the concrete wall, causing me to drop the gun with a clatter. "No, really, I'm fine!"

We were dragged, Sherlock in the lead, then me, with Lestrade bringing up the rear back the way Sherlock and I had come and then down the spiral staircase. Each of us was being restrained by about three 'minions' as I couldn't resist thinking of them. I was worried though, more than worried. I felt like I was going to vomit but I didn't know whether that was through fear or loss of blood. Sherlock was in just as vulnerable situation as I, and I assumed Lestrade, was. He could do nothing to help us. I don't think he had a plan. Then again, I didn't know why I expected him to think something up any more than me or Lestrade. I did know actually. It was irrational but I wanted to believe that Sherlock could do anything; bring my sister back from the dead, love me like I loved him and achieve world peace single handedly in an afternoon, for instance.

**Sherlock**

I was worried about John but I wasn't about to let those irritating feeling cloud my professional observation. I noticed, remembered and stored every inch of our journey in my mind palace so we could find our way out if possible. We were marched diagonally across the ground floor of the warehouse, around the pile of alcohol, and into a small and disappointingly modest looking office you might have expected to find in a GP's practice. The carpet was cream, the walls were cream, and the vertical blinds badly concealing the view of a collection of bins were cream; a severe looking woman with badly dyed ginger hair and a too large for her skinny frame navy suit swivelled round in her chair to face us.

The suit was worn to be surprising. We were supposed to be put off the fact that she ran an illegal alcohol trading business; we were supposed to think she was harmless; we were supposed to think she was stupid. I knew all these things not be true. I did, however, realise that she and I both relied on the admiration of others to survive. She was showy, as people like us so often are. The floodlit warehouse, the finding the right door, the making us show our strengths and weaknesses in a fight situation. This was someone who appreciated the art of the game as much as I did. After surveying us with a thin-lipped smile for three seconds she made her move; this was a mistake as, in those three seconds, I had already ascertained all of the above information and the fact that she herself didn't drink because her husband became inebriated and hit her almost every night. She had hidden the bruises well with a thick layer of foundation, but not well enough.

"Gentleman," The woman began, "I don't much like people visiting my establishment without an appointment." She smiled, badly; I also have this ailment, I don't know how to smile properly. It's such an unnatural facial contortion.

"We don't much like people kidnapping our friends, beating them within an inch of their lives, murdering our sisters and other innocent members of the public." Said John's voice from behind me; this made the annoying unprofessional happy warmness tug at my insides like an irritating small and rather stupid child.

"Oh," The woman stood up and walked past me, I strained against the arms restraining me to try and turn to see what she was doing but one of my captors slapped me scrappily across the face so a dribble of blood ran down my chin from my lip which I had no means to wipe away.

"But this little rascal fought his way in here of his own accord." The bodiless voice of the woman continued.

My eyes caught a movement on the blank computer screen on the desk in front of me, and I realised I was able to see a grainy, dark reflection of what was happening behind me. The woman was millimetres away from Lestrade; she was clutching his chin in her hand, startlingly pale and pristine against his blood splashed face.

Lestrade managed a pained grunt of protest.

"Oh, shush, shush, shush!" The woman said in a patronizing voice you might use on a very small child or very big idiot.

"Get off!" John yelled. I could almost feel the panic rising inside him, "You're hurting him!"

The woman chuckled, "Oh, I know, you see, I can't have just anybody wandering in here and poking around in my business. I find this whippersnapper's intrusion extremely rude."


	17. Chapter 17

**John**

She was laughing at Lestrade and the little streams of his blood that were running down her wrist from where she'd opened his face with her fingernails. I was worried for Lestrade but I was more worried that once she'd finished whatever she was doing to him she'd do it to me and Sherlock. I didn't want to die like Harry had; I didn't want to die at all. I could see myself, Sherlock, Harry and Lestrade lying side by side in shallow graves, turning purple and gas bloated and shrivelled. The image was so vivid that I jumped and would've fallen over if it weren't for the 'minions' holding me up. Lestrade's terrified, laboured breathing filled my ears, the stench of alcohol drifted up my nostrils from one of the people who were holding me. I was panicking. That was bad but I could do nothing to stop it now. I was going to hit with a wooden cudgel or stretched and hung up until I was dead. My mouth was full of sawdust, the room was spinning, my arm was on fire with pain. I saw Lestrade be turned around and taken out of the room to be murdered and the world faded away until all there was was my terror and my heartbeat and my pain.

**Sherlock**

I was formulating a plan to rescue Lestrade when "I think there's something wrong with this one, ma'am." Said one of the minions who had tree trunk of an arm against John's chest.

"What?" Said the woman, coming back into the room from containing Lestrade in a cell.

"Yeah," The minion sniffed, "I don't think he can breathe properly."

"Oh," The woman sounded disappointed, "I thought this one was in the army? A big brave soldier?"

I bit into a convenient section of one of my assailants' wrists until I felt my teeth crunch through the carpal tunnel.

"Shit!" The owner of the wrist yelled, immediately letting me go. His fellow minion also relinquished his hold on me, probably alarm by the copious amounts of dark blood squirting from his colleague's wrist and oozing off my canines.

I turned around and swiftly walked over to John, who was kneeling on the floor surrounded by his minions, who each kept a loose hold on one of his arms, and the woman; he was hyperventilating quietly. I recognised this John from the weeks after I had first met him; his eyes were unfocused, staring straight ahead of him and he was holding a fistful of his jumper over his heart, fingers curling around an uneven slab of concrete floor as if attempting not to fall off the face of the Earth. I instinctively sat opposite John and seized the hand he had been using to hold onto his shirt to both provide comfort and to check his pulse, which was accelerated; his hand was cold and clammy, his pupils were dilated.

"John?" I ventured.

John didn't say anything but he grabbed onto my hand and wrist so tightly I was seriously worried about the blood supply to my fingers and his lip began to tremble.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" A curious minion wondered aloud from behind me.

"Panic attack." The woman sighed, sounding bored.

"Oh…right…" said the minion.

"Yes," I found myself saying, "And why do you think that is? Maybe because of you treating him like you're about to murder him."

I was very proud of John, who was evidently unaware of what was happening around him, for choosing that very moment to illustrate my point by gasping, "I'm gonna die…like Harry…" Deep breath, "I don't want to… I don't want to die…" here he burst into quiet tears and leant his head on my chest. I patted his back and whispered, "It's okay, John." It felt good to be providing comfort, then I glared at the woman and her minions who were in my line of vision, hoping this was suitable expression to blast unbearable guilt into their very souls. I avoided looking at John because his eyes were devoid of anything but terror and tears which made me feel frightened too.

I took the opportunity of having free movement to obtain some more information on the woman. She had a cat, no, two cats. She lived with her husband on a council estate, in a terraced house but she didn't go home when she could help it. She had slept in the warehouse for the past two nights, she was staring at me for staring at her, she was speaking to me but I'd tuned out all my senses but my eyes so didn't know what she was saying. I allowed myself to hear her; she asked me if this had ever happened to John before.

"Yes. Yes. You seem to know he's a soldier. I'm impressed." I replied.

"Well… doesn't take a genius to work it out does it? The way he stands, the way he speaks, his hair…" She sighed.

"I suppose not. No. It does not take a genius to work out. Obviously." I was a bit disgruntled that she had pointed this out. I was hoping I could dazzle her with my deductions, but she was obviously almost as competent as me on that score.

She raised her eyebrows and smiled at me patronizingly.

I cleared my throat, "Yes, well, anyway, he was discharged from the army with a shoulder wound and PTSD which seems to have got much better lately but evidently not so good that he can hold himself together upon meeting those people who murdered his sister… understandably really, he's had a bit of a relapse."

"Are you seriously suggesting that I'm responsible for people's deaths?"

"Yes." I replied.

The woman gave me a withering look and I felt the need to have to try and prove myself to her.

"We have evidence!" I told her, "And we're well on the way to getting more… of course, if you just gave yourself up now I wouldn't have to go that far but then it wouldn't be nearly as much fun would it?"

"No." The woman smiled and gracefully sat herself next to me, "That wouldn't be fun at all. You and I both know you're in this for the game, we know how much you crave the thrill of it… I'm almost tempted to admit to this ludicrous accusation just to cut you off… but I won't because I'm in this for the money," She leaned in a breathed the last part into my ear, "and if you do destroy me, which you will; that's what you do, then there will be no money left for you. I intend to go out with a bang." She raised her voice to a normal level again, "Besides, I don't intend on giving up just yet. You guys have all seen what happens to people who annoy me. I'll get your friend back then you three can go. Do your worst, I look forward to seeing you again."

True to her word, the woman, whose name I was aggravated to admit, I had not yet ascertained, had Lestrade returned to us so within ten minutes John was breathing easily and was a lot calmer. That was that; the three of us walked out of the headquarters of The Moonblood Cult having gained a little information and lost quite a lot of blood between us. I didn't doubt that our freedom was temporary and almost certainly part of the woman's plan to stop us from revealing her secrets but I was beyond caring. My mind was working extremely fast I was dismissing theories almost as quickly as I formulated them; I was enjoying the game, I was immersed in it after this experience. I wanted to close down the Moonblood Cult and prevent anyone else from being killed but I realised that before I could collect more evidence I had other things to attend to.


	18. Chapter 18

**John**

"St. Bartholomew's Hospital, please." Sherlock said curtly as he, Lestrade and I ducked back into the taxi.

The taxi driver peered incredulously over his shoulder at the three of us wedged in the back and raised an eyebrow.

"Please," Sherlock implored him thickly through his already swelling lip, "One of these men has been shot and has had a panic attack, the other had broken ribs and we all have facial wounds from hand- to – hand combat, some of which may require stiches."

"Sorry, mate, I could lose my job… this looks pretty dodgy to me…"

"I thought that might not convince you so I also have this," Sherlock fanned a handful of paper money under the taxi driver's nose, "and the knowledge that you are moonlighting for an illegal taxi firm aside from this one. I could easily tell that to your boss if you don't take us to the hospital in which case you'll be fired anyway…"

"Alright, alright. Whatever you say."

"So, what happened to you before we arrived?" I asked Lestrade as the cab began its journey.

"Well, I got into the warehouse, everyone sort of surrounded me, took me to an upstairs room and hung me up by the wrists and then they all left me for a minute- that was when I phoned you- then they started hitting me and kicking me and then, well, I must've lost consciousness, the next thing I remember is you being there. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to find anything out…"

"I'm not surprised." Sherlock said, he wasn't being sympathetic, he was being rude and Lestrade and I ignored him, "Don't worry, though, I managed to pick up some clues."

I hoped we'd reach St. Bart's soon; Lestrade was obviously in pain, wincing every time we went over a speed bump or pothole and my arm was an ebbing and flowing stream of constant pain and blood. I felt light headed, I kept trying to focus on the conversation between Lestrade and Sherlock but I couldn't stop my eyelids drooping and my head nodding; I could feel my fingers, slippery with blood, loosening their grip on my wound.

"John?" I felt a sharp pain as Lestrade dug me in the rips with his elbow.

I snapped my eyes open and jerked my head up.

"We're nearly there," Sherlock said, "You two just stay awake. Keep talking… erm… what did you do last night?"

The experiences I had just been through had evidently driven me to recklessness and insanity because I turned my head to face Sherlock's, held his intense gaze and allowed myself to be filled with the warmth of true love, "I kissed Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock's mouth slowly turned up at one side, stretching his lopsided smile across his cheek.

Lestrade blushed and swivelled his head to look at me, then Sherlock, me then Sherlock, me and Sherlock, me, Sherlock, me, Sherlock, mesherlock, Sherlock and john johnandsherlock… what was the difference? "Wait…" Lestrade said, "So… you two… are you… are you, um, well… I suppose you are, aren't you?... are you…? John? I'd never have thought that of you, of all people…"

"You learn something new every day." Sherlock stated.

**Sherlock**

After twenty-two seconds of silence the cabbie pulled into the hospital car park. I presented him with about two-thirds of the wad of cash I'd shown him earlier and told him to wait. Turning my collar up against the morning's biting wind I watched John and Lestrade totter out of the car, clinging onto each other so they didn't fall over. I offered John my arm which he took and held as we entered the hospital, held together as a three. John and Lestrade checked themselves in, I was pretty confident they could look after themselves for a few minutes so I headed down to the morgue to see Molly.

She had been up all night working and keeping herself awake throughout the morning with repeated mugs of coffee. She had not been sleeping in her own for the two nights prior to the previous one. It was eleven seconds before she looked up from the corpse she was examining as saw me, reeling backwards and crashing into the metal trolley on which the body was placed.

"Sherlock!" She gasped, checking her reflection in a silver tray of scalpels, "You shocked me."

"Yes." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"So…" Molly encouraged, "was there anything you wanted?"

"Oh, " I searched my mind for the reason I'd come to see her and found none, which meant that a plausible one had never been there, "Just visiting." I finished lamely, that sounded like the thought of thing John would say. Oh, God, I was turning into an endearingly fractured, marginally irritating and completely clueless army doctor.

"Just visiting…" Molly echoed, "Just visiting me…?"

"Yes."

"That's nice, sorry, I'm not looking my best, I haven't had any sleep."

"I know, and you haven't slept at your house for the past two nights. Why is that?"

Mollie looked down and reddened. I realised I may have asked a personal question; I had learned from John that this can sometimes make the other person uncomfortable and that it is sometimes prudent to change the subject.

Before Molly could answer I said, "Anyway, I'm here because John and Lestrade have been injured so they're being seen to upstairs."

"Oh my goodness!" Molly said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me in the direction of the lift to rest of the hospital, "We must go and see them. Are they alright? I mean… what happened?"

I flapped my arms at her by way of useless explanation as we entered the lift, "This case we're working on at the moment…" Then I remembered, "Oh, by the way, there's a body in the warehouse we've just come from. German man, ran a brothel. Lestrade will no doubt get the body picked up and John and I will visit the brothel to pick up any evidence but this is another murder by the Moonblood Cult, who killed John's sister so when the police deliver that body here I want you to have a look at it and get back to me, okay?"

Molly blushed again, "Sure!" She said, "Sure, no problem!"

"Great." I tried to grin, then, but I don't know whether it worked.


	19. Chapter 19

**John**

Lestrade and I were whisked off to neighbouring cubicles relatively quickly because our injuries looked relatively serious; there was only a thin curtain separating us but I felt my chest tighten with panic when I couldn't see Lestrade. I was worried that he and Sherlock would abandon me and, now I had time to think about it, the pain in my arm was making my eyes water. I wanted someone to hold my hand. After an initial examination if my wound a nurse pressed a temporary dressing to it and told me to lie down on the blue paper covering of the trolley, "I'll go and fetch a doctor," He said.

It would need stiches. I knew it would need stiches. I had given people stiches loads of times but only had them once myself when I'd last been shot; that had been in a field hospital, I was pumped full of morphine, giddy with pain and practically dead. This time I was fully conscious, in more pain than I could ever remember being in, without pain relief and feeling utterly alone. At that moment I heard the curtains around the cubicle next to me (not Lestrade's side) being whisked open, a woman giving a small scream and a voice saying "Oh, I am sorry!" Sherlock's voice.

I called out to him, but my voice came out as a cracked and choked croak.

Sherlock must have heard me anyway because he and Molly sidled through the curtains around my bed almost immediately after I'd tried to shout his name. Molly smiled shyly at me and asked me how I was feeling.

"Better now Sherlock's here." I said truthfully.

Molly's smile faltered and was wiped completely off her face as Sherlock sat on the chair next to my bed and entangled his long fingers with mine.

"Oh!" Molly exclaimed, blinking rapidly, "I'd best be going then."

"Yes," Sherlock said, using his other hand to push my hair back off my blood-smeared forehead. He was staring at me intensely, like a predator might its prey, except all there was in his gaze was affection. His icy eyes seemed to have melted and the warmth of their lingering capture of mine flooded my body and calmed me.

"Okay. Well… bye then." Molly squeaked, barely supressing a sob as she ducked out of the cubicle.

**Sherlock**

Normally I held a liking for Molly but as she ran crying from John's bedside I was glad. A half-forgotten memory of Mycroft coming into my room and telling me I couldn't say I was going to go to chemistry club on Tuesdays after school and then not turn up because I knew half the things the teacher said were wrong because that wasn't what commitment was surfaced. This was commitment, sitting with my fingers entwined in the hair and hands of the one I loved, drinking him in with my eyes with my heart hammering so fast it felt ready to burst out of my chest. There was so much I wanted to say but my words seemed to be caught in a dry lump at the back of my throat. I smiled without meaning to and John smiled back. I wanted to kiss him again, to hold him in my arms but three seconds after this thought entered my head a doctor entered our curtained wonderland.


	20. Chapter 20

**John**

It was Bill Murray. I pulled myself straighter, embarrassed as I felt a blush crawl up my neck to my face. Sherlock sensed my discomfort and let the hand that had been in my hair slip to his side but continued to hold my good hand.

"John!" Bill beamed, "What a surprise!"

"Yeah," I said.

"I got a job here, in case you hadn't noticed!" He chuckled, "Resigned from the army," He answered my unasked question more seriously, running a hand through his hair, "I couldn't put up with their shit any longer."

Bill tore the temporary dressing off my arm which sent a jolt of pain running through me so strong that I swore and dug my nails into Sherlock's palm.

"Ouch." He said.

"Sorry," I loosened my grip.

Bill sucked in air through his teeth and straightened up, "John, this is a gunshot wound. How the Hell did you-?"

"Mindless gang violence." Sherlock interjected in a monotone.

"Right…" Bill raised his eyebrows and continued to examine the bullet hole, "We must stop meeting like this!" He grinned, "Although, luckily, this is a lot less serious than last time, obviously. If it were as serious you'd be dead by now, like as not!" He laughed heartily and then frowned, "Wait a second, the shrapnel in this does look like it came from one of our Brownings…"

"Well! Fancy that!" Sherlock exclaimed, failing miserably at pretending to be surprised.

Bill glanced at Sherlock and then turned back to me, "This is going to need stiches."

With Sherlock enveloping my hand in his one I barely noticed the pricks of pain as Bill's tweezers dug bits of bullet out of me and his needle tugged at the semi-anesthetised ragged flesh around the gash in my arm.

"All done." Said Bill after winding a bandage over his work, "You do realise you're going to have to speak to the police about you got this injury?"

"That won't be necessary!" Sherlock told Bill.

"Yeah," I seconded, "We were actually with a detective inspector when it happened. I'm sure he'll report it or whatever… I don't want to press charges. I'm sure we were just the same when we were their age…"

"Speak for yourself!" Bill replied, before narrowing his eyes at looking at me suspiciously, "Where is this detective inspector, then?"

"In the cubicle next door… I assume John can now be discharged?" Sherlock looped my arm round his shoulder and practically lifted me off the bed before setting me gently on the floor.

"Alright?" He asked me.

"Yeah…yeah," I couldn't stop myself smiling, partly out of embarrassment, "You're stronger than you look."

Sherlock winked and then the two of us burst out laughing.

"Yes, you're free to go… you know all about wound care…Um… is…is there anything, you know, _going on _between you two?" Bill ventured.

Sherlock and I exchanged a look and both decided that there was, "Yes." We said simultaneously.

**Sherlock**

Bill needed proof that we hadn't made Lestrade up so he, John and I walked to Lestrade's cubicle to find a significantly blotchy looking Molly and a doctor wearing far too tight a dress which she'd bought in the sales four years previously but was trying to see if she could get away with it for her sister's wedding. Four seconds.

"Hi," Said Lestrade grimly as we entered.

"Hi," John replied, "Are you okay?"

"As okay as I can be, given the circumstances." Lestrade said through gritted teeth.

"Right. Good." I tried to smile again, "Can you confirm that you are a DI with the Metropolitan Police and that you were there when John was shot?"

"Yes, that's all true." Lestrade grimaced as the doctor prised his blood covered eyelids apart.

Bill smiled, "Oh, jolly good! Better safe than sorry though, eh? John, it was lovely to catch up but you know how it is; duty calls!" with that he was gone.

"Thank God." John sighed, "I thought we'd never get rid of him."

The doctor wanted to keep Lestrade in for observation overnight but I attempted to be kind without being provocative to Molly and in the end convinced her to ask her friend Becky from A&E to pull some hypothetical strings to get him discharged earlier. If he died from intense unforeseen internal bleeding it would be my fault and I didn't think I would care overly. That probably made me a bad person… but I didn't care overly about that either.

I just wanted to avoid hanging around all night, as John would feel obliged to do; I wanted to go home and tie the threads of the case together in my mind. I needed to solve it. Lestrade, John and I were eventually able to return to our cab, all of us sporting at least one specimen of white tape on our faces, Lestrade clutching seven bottles of pain relief, John with his arm strapped across his body in a sling. By the time we reached 221B Baker Street after dropping Lestrade at Scotland Yard along with the piercing I'd picked up and instructions to analyse it I was very keen to have a good long think about what I'd seen. I sent John to bed and then lay down on the sofa, slapped two nicotine patches onto each of my arms and closed my eyes.


	21. Chapter 21

**John**

I lay in bed, feeling the dull ache of pain through my arm, for hours before I fell asleep, thinking of Sherlock's lips and hands on my face. I was woken at half past three in the morning by aggressive tuneless violin playing and suddenly felt less fond of Sherlock. I couldn't stop an involuntary hiss of pain escaping my lips as I rolled painstakingly slowly out of bed, lost my balance and landed on the floor. With a flourish, the violin playing ceased. I seized hold of the duvet and tried to pull myself up onto my feet with the one hand that wasn't in the sling. The door opened.

"John, I heard a noise and deduced you'd fallen. Are you alright?" Sherlock said, hurrying into the room and seizing me under the armpits.

"Yeah, great deduction." I said through gritted teeth as Sherlock swung me easily into the bed and tucked the bedspread in under the mattress on all sides.

"Erm, I can't breathe now." That was a slight overstatement but I did feel constricted.

"Oh," Sherlock looked crestfallen and began to un-tuck the duvet, "It's what Mycroft used to do when I was ill… on second thoughts I didn't like it very much either… anyway I told you to rest. You should be resting!"

"Yes," I sighed, "Well I was but then I was woken by some lovely Mozart."

"What? Oh, the violin! That was one of mine actually-"

"Whatever. I was trying to get out of bed to see you anyway. It doesn't feel right sleeping."

Sherlock grabbed my hand and pulled me out of bed.

"Wow. You have been working." Sherlock had plastered one of the living room walls with photos of things important to the case; Harry alive, Harry's body, The German brothel man's body, The hoodies, the piercings, Lestrade's wounds, my wounds, Sherlock's wounds, a computer-generated images of a splintered pole of wood-

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at it.

"What they think the weapon might look like after studying the body-" He waved away my unasked question, "Lestrade got the boys in blue to collect the brothel owner's body and any other evidence from the warehouse. I was right in thinking the Moonblood Cult would've scarpered with as much alcohol as they could after they realised we were onto them. Lestrade just emailed this picture to me an hour or so ago so it turns out he's not completely useless."

"Great! So have you made any progress?"

"Well, Lestrade's obviously got a rough idea of what the weapon is although I can see two flaws from the pictures of the body Lestrade's emailed to me but, then again, Anderson probably had something to with the construction of it so what can you expect? They're working on the piercings with Donovan… I've acquired the address of the brothel and a vast amount of information on the deceased owner from one of my Baker Street irregulars… I was planning to pay them a visit tomorrow but as you're awake now… anything we learn about the Moonblood Cult is key to finding the killer. I'm certain they're involved. I know we've got enough to arrest them for the alcohol but we need solid evidence to ensure to the culprit has no chance of escaping, besides which they appear to have disappeared anyway. My homeless network are keeping their eyes and ears open and I'm sure I could trace them if I put my mind to it- there are eleven possible locations they could have run to but the more we can glean about them before we meet them again the better. It's all about wrong footing these people; letting them know you know about them, that you're clever than them. I know I can find out anything about their individual members just by looking. If needs be I can rely entirely on that; I'm sure there's something I can use to bribe one of them but I'd rather not to be honest, I already have a criminal record. The long and short of it is; we should learn as much as we can about their history, who they deal with, whether it's just alcohol, who's involved… this way there'll be no way they won't let us keep them in custody at least- if we get all the Moonblood Cult people in the same place I'll be able to spot the murderer or murderers in three and a half minutes."

**Sherlock**

We took a taxi to Soho Square and walked the rest of the way to a relatively seedy establishment called 'Heavenly Bodies' apart from the pink neon lights said 'Heavenly Bodys'.

"Hmm…" John sniffed as a middle aged man stumbled past us into the brightly lit interior of the brothel, already undoing his flies, "This is… classy."

I snorted involuntarily through my nose and led John into the surprisingly clean room which smelt of weed and cheap perfume and was lit with a subtle red light. I turned to look at John, who raised his eyebrows. The area we were in was deserted; a few glossy brochures about STDs were pinned to an otherwise empty cork board. A fake wood desk stood in one corner with a garish red and yellow push bell taken from a 1980s board game in its centre. Behind the desk there was a doorway obscured by a beaded curtain and surrounded by A4 pieces of paper which stated in loud word art, size 72, 'If your rude you go', and 'no wash, no lady' and 'we have two men also who are loving fun.'

"The grammar here is terrible" John breathed in my ear, nodding at the notices.

"I know." I walked to the desk and planted my palm on the bell.

In thirty six seconds a woman emerged from behind the beaded curtain. She was in her mid-forties had bleached blond hair which was showing brown at the roots; she was wearing a tight red corset which her voluptuous breasts nearly spilled out of.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting I was just-"

"-Feeding your baby, or someone else's but I assume it was yours, I know." I said.

Her mouth hung open in that gormless way I see so often on the faces of people I'm talking to, I assume it means they're awestruck and is normally followed by a slow 'how did you do that?' sort of question. Before this woman's mouth could catch up with her mind I told her.

"Your clothing is crumpled from where you've been carrying a baby on your hip, there's a wet patch consistent with milk leakage on you corset under your left breast, your eyes darted back to that curtain three times in that short sentence you spoke to us- you're worried about the child- that may be because you're being paid and don't want any harm to come to the baby so you won't lose your money but unless you have a baby around the same age which is about eighteen months- a little old to still be feeding from you, don't you think? – it's unlikely you would be producing breast milk and, let's face it, who leaves their baby in the company of a woman who is going to be spending the night in a brothel? Unless, of course, they don't know or they're a prostitute who could find no one else but both of those scenarios are unlikely so the most probable solution is that it's your baby you have just been breast feeding."

The woman looked surprised and affronted; I felt a natural smile of satisfaction pull at the corners of my mouth. For seven seconds I stood there, smiling, with nobody saying anything. This obviously too long a period of silence because John stepped past me and leaned on the desk, "Is this the, uh, establishment of um… um…"

I realised I'd never divulged the name of the dead man to John so finished his sentence for him, "Gunthe Keller?"

The woman immediately assumed a defensive position, crossing her arms across her chest, pressing her legs together, flicking her eyes from side to side and going rigid. She sniffed, "Who wants to know?"

"Don't worry," John smiled at the woman, stepping backwards so she didn't feel threatened, "You're not in trouble… is there anywhere we can go that's a bit more private?"

The woman looked indecisive for four seconds and then nodded us into the back room.


	22. Chapter 22

**John**

She immediately swept up a baby who was indeed about eighteen months old from an armchair and sat in it, waving Sherlock and I distractedly to the other two. It appeared we had stepped into a suburban living room belonging to a middle-aged spinster. There were another few seconds of silence in which the woman stroked the baby's feathery hair, Sherlock drank in the room with his eyes and I sat awkwardly wondering how to break the silence and wishing I'd taken more painkillers for my arm.

"So, Gunthe." Said the woman, smiling unconvincingly at Sherlock, who was obviously the leader I guess, "This is his place but you won't find him here. He had to go away for a bit, sorry."

"Yes…" Sherlock smiled scarily back, "About that… we actually know of your husband's whereabouts."

The woman jumped, "I never told you he's my husband."

"No…" Sherlock agreed, "but he was. You're not wearing a ring but you have been, it's too tight so you've been married a long time and put on weight since the wedding, I'd say it was between ten and fifteen years ago. You have another son, an older one, from before you were married, and this child is your only other one. You're worried about Gunthe so it couldn't have been anyone else-"

"Alright!" The woman yelled, "You win. Just tell me where Gunthe is."

I braced myself. Sherlock is extremely talented at many things but being tactful is not one of them. A hot prickling was crawling up my neck and ears, I was thinking of Harry and it was making me want to cry.

"He was found dead yesterday, badly beaten and partially encased in concrete. In a warehouse belonging to the Moonblood Cult, an illegal alcohol trading ring, probably because he'd divulged information about them to us but, then again, possibly not, seeing as he was dead long before we arrived there so they'd have had to have spies, which is, of course, not unlikely; can you think of any other reason he may have been killed?"

I quickly sprung forward and grabbed the baby, who was slipping off the woman's lap and onto the floor and sat back in my chair with him on my knees. The woman appeared to have collapsed in on herself; she was clutching the sides of her chair and sobbing uncontrollably.

Sherlock looked at me, exceedingly alarmed. He attempted to provide some comfort with the pathetic, "Er, it's okay. Well it's not, obviously, you're husband's dead…um…"

I rolled my eyes at Sherlock and tried to project as much of the pain I felt for my loss into my voice, "The thing is, if you can tell us anything at all about Gunthe it will help us to bring his killer to justice."

"Yes." Said Sherlock, flashing a half grateful, half sympathetic smile in my direction.

The woman carried on weeping as though she hadn't heard me.

"And, and, you've… got this little baby to look after!" Sherlock cried triumphantly; his clutching at straws had evidently uncovered something close to her heart.

She snatched the child off me and started patting his back and jiggling him up and down on her knees as she cried.

Sherlock walked over to me. He stood behind my chair, stroking the back of my hair with one of his fingers: letting me know he was there, warning me to hold it together for this woman, asking me for help…

"So," I began, "What's your name?" I asked the mourning woman, reaching across my chest with my good arm to stop Sherlock touching my head and lock my fingers into his. We held hands over my shoulder, resting our togetherness on my original bullet wound from Afghanistan.

"Mollie." The woman sniffed, calming down a little; she could this, it was good to have something to do that might be helpful to solving the mystery of her husband's death, it was easy to answer questions, "And this little boy is Timmy."

"Good. Where did Gunthe say he was going the last time you saw him?"

After a few deep breaths Mollie answered, "He said he could get us some more money by giving information to some detective person."

Sherlock tightened his grip on my hand; I had to blink rapidly to stop the tears from spilling out of my eyes. The last time Mollie had seen her husband was before he'd come to see us. It hurt me to know I was probably at least partially responsible for inflicting such tortuous pain as I felt and that I knew by now would never go away upon a person. Sherlock massaged the triangle of skin between my thumb and forefinger. It lessened my hurt a little.

"As I said before," Sherlock began, unconcernedly, "That may be a possible reason why he was killed… Oh!" Sherlock ripped his hand from mine, "Oh!"

I twisted around in the chair, gritting my teeth as my injured arm jarred against the upholstery. Sherlock was leaping up and down, beaming like Christmas had come early, with his hands pressed together in front of his lips, "That's it!" He cried, "Of course! Come on John, we're leaving!"

I pulled myself out of the chair and shook Mollie's hand, "Thank you for your time tonight-" I started,

"Hurry up, John!" shouted Sherlock.

"- and I really am very sorry for your loss." I smiled as much as possible before Sherlock literally dragged me out of the room by the back of my jumper.

**Sherlock**

They're hiding something! Obviously they're hiding something. Nobody cares this much about alcohol… besides it would hardly so profitable as people, say, prostitutes. If you're comfortable being paid a tidy sum or a good lot of alcohol for sex, you wear a certain piercing… of course you do! It's a very probable explanation. I found myself not wanting to relinquish my hold on John but realised it was no longer appropriate so let go after probably too long. We were halfway across the 'Heavenly Bodies' lobby when a man entered the area from a door to our left.

He was a prostitute and had been subjected to violent anal sex from an older man within the last four minutes, he had ended the sex hurriedly and bit hit hard across the face for the trouble, he had received no payment, he had to be Mollie's other son; he was worried about her and wanted to reach her as soon as he could, so soon in fact that he'd endured abuse without complaint that he normally not have stood for… there were tears in his eyes, I was unable to discern if this was from the pain of being hit or the pain of hearing his mother's crying from behind the bead curtain.

I recognised him… his face was stored in my memory which meant he was important to me in some way. I only allow myself to retain relevant information. Without thinking I stopped him by placing both my hands on his shoulders and staring at every inch of him. He didn't drink; he didn't smoke; he took no illegal drugs… he had a tattered black hoody tied by the arms around his neck… he'd been with Harry the day she'd died. I'd seen him on the CCTV footage of her in Wimbledon Park. He was who she'd been waiting to meet.

"Er… Sherlock?" John said, attempting to lead me away from the young man.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm in a bit of a rush; any other night, including Christmas, I'd be happy to do anything you like…" the man explained, squirming to try and stop me from touching him.

I held him even tighter and said, "I don't want sex. I want to talk to you about Harry Watson."

"What?" John exclaimed; he let go of me.

The prostitute's eyes filled with panic and he squirmed even more, "No! No, I don't know what you're talking about!"

John pinned me to the man and the man to the wall by leaning his whole weight on my back, "Yes you do! You obviously do!" He hissed.

"Okay, John, calm down," I said as I struggled to prevent his bulk from pressing my face into the prostitute's.

"No." John answered flatly. He reached his non-bandaged arm over my shoulder and forced the prostitute's head into the wall.

I extracted myself from the bundle so that John was keeping the man against the wall by leaning his entire body on him.

"Please, we only need a few minutes of your time…" I explained, "I would suggest tipping your mother out of that room over there but we just broke the news to her that her husband was brutally murdered which does seem to have thrown her into hysterics somewhat. Shall we go for a walk, then?"


	23. Chapter 23

**John**

The night air whipped our faces as we stepped into the street. The man who knew about my sister was young, lean and tall. Under the hoodie slung over his shoulders he wore a faded denim shirt and jeans with a baggy white T-Shirt and scuffed white trainers. A stupid flop of light brown hair hung over his weasel-like face and watery blue eyes; he kept jerking his head compulsively to get it out of his line of vision. We listened to the rain and the cars and the people and none of us said anything. Eventually the man said, "What did you do to your arm?"

I was so boiling with confusing emotion that it took me a minute to realise he was speaking to me, "Oh, I got shot." I told him.

He reeled, eyes wide, into a wall behind us and, unexpectedly, began to cry.

"You're her brother, aren't you?" He sobbed, "You're Harry's brother, what was it…John?"

"Yes." I said, feeling white hot pain of grief stab into my insides instead of the anger.

He knocked my bad arm as he fell forwards onto me but I didn't care. He pressed his face into my chest and wept.

"It's alright," I told him, letting my own tears flow. I realised it was fine to cry as I held this man who shared my pain to me in a one-armed hug, "Everything's going to be alright."

"This was never meant to happen," the man sniffed into me.

"What?" snapped Sherlock from somewhere above and behind me, "What was never meant to happen? And what's your name by the way? I'll need it to arrest you."

The man extracted himself from my embrace and shakily lit a half-smoked cigarette which he fished from his pocket; silent tears were still cascading down his cheeks, "My name's Jake Fisher…Harry was never meant to die"

"No, well, obviously." Said Sherlock, dismissively sceptical.

I wiped my face with the backs of my hands and stepped closer to Sherlock. In his warming shadow, I managed to pull myself together.

"What was meant to happen, then?" I asked in my most professional voice as the three of us continued our unorthodox stroll.

Jake ran his hand through his hair, "I told her to let them do whatever they wanted to her! I told her!"

"Hang on, who? Who do what to her?" My befuddled brain began to groggily make connections, "Wait, wait, you were… you're a… Harry wasn't! She wouldn't!"

"No, you're right. Harry wasn't a prostitute… I am, though, and she's… sorry, she _was _my friend and she- well," He glanced nervously at me, probably remembering me holding him against the wall, "She was- you must have known… well, she had a bit of a… of a… where, um, drink was concerned… sometimes…"

The anger was starting to boil within me again, "She was an alcoholic. I know. What's your point?"

He smiled nervously and rubbed his nose self-consciously; for the first time I saw a hole where a piercing should go in its flesh.

"She was in trouble… financially. We've been friends since secondary school and she wanted alcohol, she needed it. I told her, well I was joking really, but I told her the only way I knew of to get what you wanted was to have sex- through this…organisation… The Moonblood Cult. They really will give you pretty much anything if you please who they want you to, you know, investors, employees… sometimes there's police or something like that, you know, who're poking their noses in where they're not wanted… well, if that happens, the Moonblood Cult'll tell you to take pictures with the person… stuff they can use to blackmail 'em. They'll give you anything, they really will… you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours… that sort of thing…" He tailed off, staring at his feet; his lip was quivering.

"Go on." Sherlock commanded.

"If you know Harry, you know that once she's got her mind set on something there's no convincing her against it… It was all my fault."

"Sounds like it.! Sherlock assented cheerfully.

**Sherlock**

I realised after I said that that it was not tactful; it was true though, and I thought people generally like to be agreed with. Evidently not because Jake bit down on his knuckles and began to cry again. He had obviously inherited minimal self-control from his mother. I gave him thirty seconds exactly to collect himself before continuing, "So what did she do?"

"I put her in contact with the Moonblood Cult… she wouldn't tell me what they wanted her to do but we met… in Wimbledon Park… just before she was due to meet the Moonblood Cult people. It was weird it was in the day, I should have known something was wrong… but it was an old Moonblood haunt, that house, it's been blown up now, but it was often used… I thought everything would be okay…" Jake fell to his knees, his eyelids closed impossibly slowly over eyes that widened in desperate realisation and his body smacked, face-first, into the pavement.

Poison. That was the only solution. Jake had been slowing down in his speech, his mind had been befuddled. I'd taken that to be bereavement but obviously not. My guess was a potassium solution; and my guesses are never wrong.


	24. Chapter 24

**John**

A potassium solution; no mistake. It was obvious Jake's heart's natural pacemaker had been disrupted. The sweat-slick skin of his neck was doughy and grey and gave my fingers no rhythm of reassuring pulse. I awkwardly turned him over with one arm. His face was covered with intricate rivulets of dark blood streaming freely from his nose and forehead; I didn't stop to consider whether this was from hitting the ground or increased internal pressure.

"Sherlock…Sherlock!" It felt like my windpipe was constricted and I had to physically force my voice up through the narrow space.

"Yes. What is it?" I could hear him pacing around me, probably trying to think up why and how this had happened.

"I need you to start CPR. I can't do this one handed."

"Er-what?!" There was a distinct note of panic in Sherlock's voice and I turned around to see him backing rapidly away towards the road, "No. No, I can't… John, I can't do that."

"Sherlock!" I could feel the disbelief and incredulousness rising within me. Could even Sherlock have the audacity and selfishness to put his own whims and ideals before the life of a young man? "If you don't he's going to die!"

"He's probably going to die anyway…"

I stared at him, lost for words. For the first time, I was truly disgusted with Sherlock Holmes. Just as amazed as I often was at his brilliance but this time at his heartlessness. My fists were clenched and I couldn't imagine the immense satisfaction that would course through me when they made contact with his sharp cheekbones.

"Okay," Sherlock knelt down next to me. His hands were trembling, "I'll do it. Just… just stay with me… and tell me what to do."

"Alright." I said gently, realising that Sherlock was genuinely petrified. I talked him through how to perform CPR, something I thought everyone had at least a basic knowledge of (Sherlock had deemed it unnecessary and 'deleted' it from his brain), and he performed chest compressions and rescue breaths for twenty minutes until an ambulance arrived and Jake was declared dead.

"Oh well," Sherlock said brightly, as we made our way back to 'heavenly bodies' to break more bad news to Mollie, "Nothing else we could have done."

My mouth was full of sawdust, my legs were lead and my heart was barbed wire, "You tell that to Mollie, then." My voice was harsher than I intended it to be.

"I will." Sherlock stepped out in front of me. I was left watching his coat batter his ankles and his heels send up sparks of rain.

**Sherlock**

John would quiz me about my moment of weakness later. I knew he was cross with me but just then my personal feelings were irrelevant. I did not want to admit to myself or anyone else why I'd acted the way I had. If I was being honest with myself, which I wasn't, I was ashamed and embarrassed. My mind boxed the memory off so I considered it no more. All I had to do was break the news of the untimely demise of a not-so treasured son and valuable lead to an already grieving woman before going home.

As we entered the brothel for the second time that evening and with much the same objective, we passed the eager punter we'd seen arriving the first time we had. I nodded at him. He grinned giddily back at me. He and John both attempted to pass through the door at the same time which caused John to stumble into the doorframe. I cupped my hand into his leather-clad elbow and tried to pull him into a more steady position but he slapped my arm away. It hurt enough for me to know I'd develop a bruise where his palm had connected with my forearm. We didn't speak.

Mollie was no longer sobbing; she was sniffing miserably on her own, jiggling the baby up and down on her knees when we slipped through the bead curtain.

"Jake?" She said hopefully, looking at us with bloodshot eyes, "Oh," Her mouth thinned, "It's you."

John said nothing. He was deliberately leaving it all to me.

"It is." I confirmed. "May we sit down?"

Mollie nodded. I was surprised to notice that she'd applied a new layer of lipstick since we'd left. There was little doubt that her grief was genuine- I couldn't fathom how she'd found the time and will-power to do such a thing. Her eye makeup was stained in trails down her cheeks. Perhaps she was worried she'd have a customer and face them looking less than her whore-ish best… maybe she felt stronger with her true face painted over.

"What do you want now?" Mollie asked wearily.

I knew from experience that it was better for everybody to explain things in simple terms, include as much information as you can so you can obtain more and not draw out the telling process.

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this," I was, I wished John could have told her, "but your son, Jake, died just a very few minutes ago. It appears he's been poisoned by the same group of people who killed your husband."

"No." Mollie said, shaking her head, "No, that's not true."

She was just being idiotic now, "Yes!" I said, trying to imagine I were talking to a particularly ignorant version of Anderson, "It is."

That was when Mollie's fist made crunching impact with my nose. I gagged on the metallic blood rushing into my pharynx from the newly crushed blood vessels in my nose. Red ebbed at the edges of my vision and I reeled downwards. The floor seemed to be rushing towards me; I could see the bright blood splattering the carpet from my nose and mouth. John caught me and easily took my weight, throwing my arm over his shoulder. I hung there, holding his hand.

"Get out of here!" Mollie shrieked.

"Alright," John said carefully, leading me backwards out of the room, "Okay, we're going."

As I was guided over the threshold every breath I attempted to take was hindered by the bubbling of blood in the back of my mouth. John whisked a packet of tissues out of his pocket; one of the only memories I have of my mother is of her orchestrating this same action to wipe a dribble of ice cream off my face on our only family holiday to the beach. I held the fistful of tissues John passed me to my nose and walked on my own now, beside him, scouring the desolate road with my eyes for any sign of a cab. The initial shock of the blow had by now worn off so I could feel a throbbing pain growing under my fingers.

John stopped me and examined my nose.

"It's not broken." He said, "And you kind of deserved it."

I was affronted so I complained loudly in my best whiney voice as we continued our stroll. "Ouch, John, it hurts. You're a doctor so do something to make it better…"

He said nothing.

"John! Ow! My nose! It's really painful."

"Shut up. So's my arm. At least you haven't been hung by your wrists from concrete and beaten to death or poisoned or had your skull smashed in by a cudgel!"

This was the juncture where I should have offered some comfort, perhaps told John I understood how he was feeling but instead all I did was say a plain, "Sorry," because I knew it would pacify John for a short while. As the flow of blood from my nostrils began to finally ease, a cab drew up and John and I stepped into it without speaking.


	25. Chapter 25 WARNING: CONTAINS GAY SEX

**John**

When we reached Baker Street I re-did my sling which had become stained by Sherlock's blood and then sat on my bed. I wanted to cry; I felt so emotionally drained, but no tears would fall. There was so much death here; probably more than I saw in Afghanistan… and Sherlock was so obnoxious and inhuman so much of the time. I felt as if I couldn't talk to him as if he were a person because it hardly ever seemed like he was one. Sherlock was plucking at his violin viciously in the living room. I knew he'd also been affected by the events of the day. He had been so frightened of doing CPR he'd been willing to let a young man die. Maybe I was being hard on him… the pizzicato of his long-fingered playing had been replaced by silence. Then the shock of a gunshot that set my heart racing. I actually had to squeeze my eyes tight shut to prevent my brain being overrun by visions.

"Jesus, Sherlock!" I shouted, slamming my bedroom door behind me as I went to confront him about his behaviour that night. If I'd felt sorry for him before I certainly didn't now.

Sherlock guiltily placed his gun on the mantelpiece and pushed it behind the skull.

"Um… That wasn't me…?" He said, smiling like the idiotic genius he is.

"Sit down." I commanded, taking my own seat in my usual armchair.

Sherlock looked at me quite reproachfully but did as he was told, taking a seat opposite me.

"What happened earlier?" I asked rather too forcefully, "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You not wanting to give Jake CPR. You being scared." Which was one of the only ways I could

describe what had happened.

Sherlock bowed his head and looked up at me through over-bright eyes.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stay angry at him for long; I was mildly annoyed that I was having to comfort him when his sister hadn't just died and he hadn't just been shot but I knew that he couldn't help having, contrary to popular belief, feelings.

"I want to know." I said, which was true, "You knew everything about me five seconds after you first laid eyes on me-"

"-fifteen seconds, actually."

"The only thing I know about you that matters is about your childhood and where your drug addiction sprang from."

"John, don't make me. I don't want to-"

"You owe it to me and Jake to explain. Please, I won't be angry, Sherlock, I just need to understand."

Sherlock slowly uncoiled himself from his armchair and padded softly across the small stretch of carpet towards me, keeping me prisoner with his eyes. He carefully clambered onto the chair, kneeling with one of his knees either side of my legs. He was so close to me. I felt my breath catch in my throat with anticipation. Sherlock's majestic lips were at the level of my nose; his breath made my eyelids flutter. Sherlock dipped his chin slightly and then leaned his head slightly to the left. He parted my lips with his own and ran his tongue over my teeth. I reciprocated. We kissed, softly and sweetly, for a long time. Mine and Sherlock's breathing faltered; stuck in our throats… we panted as one, each consumed by his own desire.

"God, Sherlock… not now…" I breathed.

Sherlock buried his head in my neck and kissed my deeply, tickling my jaw line with his curls that were moist with sweat, "Shhhh… don't ruin it," He sighed.

I felt my legs slacken and raised my head, forcing my tongue into Sherlock's mouth. I felt the damp ridges on the roof of his mouth with my tongue. At the same time Sherlock nibbled gently on my bottom lip. A low moan sounded in the back of Sherlock's throat and he slowly moved downwards, kissing and licking and breathing his wet warm breath onto my throat, my chest, my stomach. He grabbed the waistband of my jeans and I stood up and stepped out of them. I was now standing with the back of my calves leaning against the worn armchair and my good hand tangled in the black curls of Sherlock's hair for intimacy and balance. Sherlock was kneeling at my feet.

My dick grew large and hard; I could feel the shooting warmth running through it and my stomach even before Sherlock pulled my boxers down until they were around my ankles and began to tickle the dome of my penis with his tongue. After a few moments spent licking the end of my penis with his flicking tongue, Sherlock closed his lips over it and proceeded to tenderly suck it.

All I could hear was the sound of myself panting like a dog and occasionally saying, "Yes," without meaning to.

Sherlock gradually increased the intensity of his sucking until he was furiously consuming the wetness on the tip of my penis as fast as my body could produce it. The ball of warmth grew inside me until I could bear it no more. I exploded into Sherlock's mouth and then his hands as he rubbed my penis vigorously. The white stickiness of my sperm coated my penis and I could feel its coldness as a sharp yell of pleasure escaped my lips. I dropped backwards onto the chair, my dick still pumping cum out onto my bare thighs and the armchair. Sherlock lapped it up with his tongue like a cat might a bowl of milk where it pooled between my left ball and thigh, the sandpaper feel of his tongue probing the loose skin of my testicle made my legs spasm. I shut my eyes and cherished the ecstasy of the gloriously irrepressible heat within me.

When the fairy dust faded I opened my eyes. My legs were still stiff and shaking. Sherlock was sitting on his haunches, looking up at me, he'd taken his tight shirt off. Without speaking I dropped off the chair and pushed Sherlock to the floor so he was lying on his back. I kissed him for a long time, feeling the soft flesh of the inside to Sherlock's lips with my tongue. He and I licked each other's tongues at the same time, winding them together and then sliding them apart again. I was wearing my socks, jumper and shirt; Sherlock his trousers. It was difficult to breathe. I was sucking on Sherlock's upper lip, occasionally licking my saliva from beneath his nose. He was doing the same to my lower lip.

I moved onto Sherlock's neck, feeling and smelling and tasting his sweat. As I did this I felt Sherlock wriggle out of his trousers and underwear beneath me. I took his warm, flaccid penis in my hand and moved my hand up and down it, slowly at first, then more quickly until it swelled and hardened beneath my fingers. I'd never done this to anyone but myself and only ever had sex with women. It was exciting. Sherlock gave me a long, lingering kiss on the mouth and whispered, "Do it," into my ear. He turned around so he was on his hands and knees in front of me.

His pale naked body was quivering with anticipation. I could see his spine and shoulder blades; being that thin couldn't be healthy. I crouched down onto my knees, unsure of what entirely to do now Sherlock's arse was inches from my face.

"Erm, I'm sorry if this hurts…" I told him.

"Just do it." Sherlock moaned.

I spread some of the wetness from the end of my dick up the length of it and used my finger to do the same to Sherlock's butt crack to act as a lubricator. I prised Sherlock's right butt cheek to the side, feeling downy hair beneath my good hand, so the hole of his anus was stretched larger than normal. My penis was still erect and I eased it into Sherlock and settled on my knees behind him.

I thrusted myself in and out of Sherlock repeatedly, feeling ripples of pleasure run through my dick and stomach as I did so. There was blood on my penis from ripping Sherlock's anus but I didn't care. Sherlock was grunting rhythmically in time to my humps. As I gained speed and momentum the feelings within me grew more intense; I could hear myself moaning aloud, "Mmmm…"

Sherlock's grunting was gaining in pitch and volume, "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

I pushed myself into and out of Sherlock a couple more times, knowing orgasm wasn't far off, "Yeah, come on…" I groaned.

Sherlock was screaming by now and shaking uncontrollably, "AH! AH! AH! AH! YES! YES! YES! YES!"

I felt myself erupt and pulled myself out of Sherlock.

He had rolled over onto his back and was covering his stomach with his cum; massaging it into his skin and the hollows beneath his hip bones whilst laughing uncontrollably.

I stood over him, spraying sperm over his face, my laughs mingling with his.

When Sherlock heard me laughing, he raised his head and madly sucked me off; licking me up and down and making low sounds of pleasure that made me vibrate.

When we'd finished we went to bed: Sherlock's bed. As we were settling down Sherlock said quickly, "I couldn't give Jake CPR because I spent two hours giving it to my dead mother. Mycroft had to punch me in the head to get me to stop."

"It's okay, now. Thank you. "

We slept naked with our legs and arms entangled and our noses touching

**Sherlock**

It was midday by the time John woke up. I'd been pacing the room beside the bed, drinking watered-down lynx deodorant from a thermos flask, since three minutes past nine, my coat whipping my ankles reassuringly every time I spun around.

"What time is it…?" John asked sleepily, sitting up in bed. My bed.

"Twelve O'clock." I replied.

"Oh, shit, really?" He leapt out of bed before remembering he was naked. He cupped his genitals in his hands, suddenly embarrassed, and blushed. "Erm… have you seen my clothes?"

"You left them in the living room."

"Oh, yes, so I did!" He laughed nervously and ran from the room.

We were most definitely an item now. As I understood it, two people couldn't kiss, have sex and sleep together without being a couple. I had lost my virginity to John and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world. My understanding of him had always been present, but now was most certainly deeper. I could tell how he was feeling and what he was thinking without even using my powers of deduction. This was unnerving and exciting all at once.

"John?" I called, wishing to tell him that Lestrade had phoned about the piercings and that I had several theories as to the identity of one of the murderers. It frightened me that this had completely slipped my over-capable mind in a moment of romance.

"Give me a minute! I'm just putting my trousers on!" He replied from the room next door.

My cheeks ached with the effort of repressing a smile but then I remembered that nobody was watching and smiling was a perfectly natural response to being in a relationship and close to solving a case so let it spread across my face.

John and I bumped into each other as I exited my bedroom and he went to enter it.

"Oh, sorry." John said, as his head brushed my jaw.

"No problem." I replied, plucking up all my courage and kissing him chastely on the lips.

John coughed and looked at the ground awkwardly. From the way his face was averted I could see was ashamed but from the way he'd acted the night before I knew he felt the same way about me as I did about him.

Then I remembered that other people are stupid. Even John. "There's nobody here to see us." I explained carefully.

"Yes, I know." John smiled, "And even if there was, I wouldn't care."

He kissed me, but it wasn't enough to disguise his uncertainty.

I was about to tell John the information Lestrade had given me and I had found out myself when his mobile rang.

I listened to John's side of the conversation while sitting across from him in our armchairs. My shirt was still on the floor between us.

"Hello?" John said, "Oh, hi, mum, how are you?... No…I'm working on it, actually, with the police… yes...and my friend, yes…Sherlock Holmes… how's dad bearing up?... I see…" He hung his head and looked at his hands in his lap, "Tomorrow? Where?...Okay," He mimed writing in the air at me so I sprang from my chair to the kitchen and ripped a post-it note off the fridge and pen off the surface next to it. I handed them to John. Still listening to his mother on the phone, he scribbled 'All Saints, Margret Street,' onto the yellow square of paper.

"Yes, mum…" John continued, "I'll be there. You're sure you don't mind?... Okay, okay, great… yep… I'll see you then, then…okay…bye, I love you."

John put the phoned down and explained that Harry's funeral was the following day, which I'd gathered from the half of the conversation I'd been able to hear, I didn't tell him this, though. I thought it would be imprudent.

"Do you want me to come with you?" I asked, hoping he'd say no so I could continue to follow some leads relating to the case.

"Yes." He said flatly, "My entire family hates me because I broke down and was discharged from the army. I'm sure them knowing I've got a boyfriend won't make them think any less of me than they do already."

I attempted to be consoling, "We don't have to do… boyfriend-y things…"

John's face broke into a smile and he sighed. "I know. Do you have a black suit?"

"Er… no. Mycroft probably does, though. I think that's the standard uniform when you're the British Government. I'll phone him and ask."


	26. Chapter 26

**John**

Sherlock went to his bedroom and phoned Mycroft from there. I sat on the sagging armchair and felt guilty for moving on with life. My heart felt as though it was a sponge that had filled with water and was now too heavy for my aorta to support. I'd been weak by giving into my feelings about Sherlock and taking my concentration off the case. I'd allowed myself to be happy and I hated myself for it. At that moment I promised myself that after tomorrow I'd definitely concentrate on nothing but the case.

I jumped as Sherlock's bedroom door snapped shut.

"Mycroft's on his way." He announced grandly.

I nodded, "Great… listen, we've taken our eyes off the ball-"

Sherlock arched one elegant eyebrow, "I was rather under the impression that we'd done exactly opposite of that." He poked his tongue out from between his teeth and moistened his top lip.

"No, Sherlock, I'm being serious. We need to put our minds back on the case."

"Your mind may be so small as to only be able to focus on one thing at a time at what I'm sure is a very relaxing speed but mine is not. I've made some progress where suspects are concerned. I'm pretty certain I know who killed Jake; We'll need to be in contact with the Moonblood cult to pull all the strings together and find out who's behind the whole business."

Sherlock's superior brain power normally made me jealous but this time I felt as if I'd been let off the hook, "Well, what have you found out, then?"

"That man we saw entering the brothel, do you remember?" He has the annoyingly arrogant look curling his lip but I don't care.

I wrack my mind back to our adventure at 'Heavenly Bodies' and think I know who Sherlock's talking about, "The old-ish one who already had his flies undone?"

"Yes, him."

I wait for Sherlock to elaborate. When he doesn't I probe, "What about him?"

Sherlock looks at me like I'm a complete idiot, "He murdered Jake."

**Sherlock**

Yet again I was astounded at how inobservant John and the rest of the population of the world were but at the same time I was looking forward to showing off so I talked as quickly as I could as I explained to John how my conclusion had been reached, "Well, it's simple really, he brushed past me; as I touched him he pulled his coat tighter around himself even though he'd just undone his flies: Suddenly self-conscious? No, there was something he wanted to keep hidden in his coat. He also glanced at his watch and then sped up as he went through the lobby. He didn't stop at reception, not because he was regular customer, he wasn't, he only picked the door he did because of information he'd received prior to his visit. He didn't want to attract to attention to himself. He then visited Jake posing as a punter, had sex with him and injected Potassium Chloride solution directly into his brachial artery during the intercourse. Jake felt the needle entering his flesh and tried to escape put was hit across the face by his assailant and the damage had already been done. He was in such a hurry to see his mother because he knew he'd been drugged at the very least. We never saw that man leave so he must have left the brothel through a window or back entrance and picked up a getaway vehicle. He was long gone by the time Jake died."


	27. Chapter 27

**John**

Before I could ask Sherlock to go into more depth the intercom buzzed. Sherlock leapt across to it and pressed the button in one smooth motion. He was awkward and graceful at the same time like a baby giraffe, "Yes?" He said.

A crackly version of Mycroft's voice replied, "I've brought you the suit."

"Ah, brother dear! Come on up!" Sherlock said in a caricature of eagerness.

A few moments later there was a sharp rap on our door.

Sherlock had folded himself up into his armchair and showed of no sign of moving so I crossed the room and opened the door myself.

"John, I'm sorry for your loss," Said Mycroft, somehow discarding his coat, hat and stick next to the door, negotiating himself and a suit bag into room and never breaking eye contact with me and he squeezed my shoulder sympathetically.

"Oh, thanks." I said limply.

Mycroft took a seat on the sofa and I returned to my armchair.

Sherlock got up and snatched the suit bag off Mycroft.

"There's gratitude for you!" Mycroft sighed as Sherlock took the bag to his room without saying anything.

I raised my eyebrows at Mycroft, embarrassed for Sherlock's behaviour.

"Although it's only because he's feeling bashful, bless him! His nickname's going to have to be changed now…" Mycroft announced patronisingly.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He's deduced that I've deduced that he's lost his virginity. To you." Mycroft smiled pleasantly at me as if he'd just remarked on the weather, "Haven't you Shirley?" He called.

Sherlock re-entered the room still managing to look proud with a bright pink blush spread across his cheeks that I could feel my own face mimicking, "Yes. Don't call me that."

If I felt inadequate around Sherlock I felt utterly depleted when he, Mycroft and I were all together. I sat in my chair trying to be cheerful and not think about Harry's imminent funeral while Sherlock and Mycroft tried to out-deduce each other but I inevitably lost the train of conversation until Mycroft said, "John?" and I realised we'd gone back to the subject of sex.

"Hmm?" I said, shaking my head to rid myself of the image of Harry's broken body.

"I was just saying that I think it's very sweet that you and Sherlock are together," Mycroft explained with his usually annoying air of superiority, "I mean now people can stop talking about you behind your backs, Moriarty can tease you about something that actually exists and Sherlock can shag you when he's bored instead of drinking embalming fluid and ingesting all manner of carcinogens!"

"I've never drunk embalming fluid." Sherlock said shortly.

I didn't say anything but a prickling of embarrassment was crawling up my neck onto my face.


End file.
